My Sweet Feathered Girls

I'm so sorry to have to post this, but In all honesty I need to.

 I'm sad and heartbroken to share that 

sometime in the night on Wednesday our entire flock of "Feathered Girls" were killed by a large dog.

 I know it was a dog because of the tracks that were all around the chicken coop. I feel sick for being the cause to their misfortunate end.

You see........

 I left the gate open to the coop that night.

 The snow has melted and it has been warm.....so.... I opened the gate so they could come out first thing in the morning and enjoy the beautiful weather. It is something we have always done. When the weather is good we open the gate to the coop and let them free-range all day. If the "girls" see a hawk they run into their netted run and they are safe. Yes, I do leave it open at night, however, I never thought about a dog fitting through their coop door and killing them. We have never had a dog come around other than the neighbors fluff ball of a Pomeranian and he is half the size of one of my chickens. We have never seen any dog tracks or the actual physical presents of a dog. I'm an excellent spotter of tracks, it is something a chicken "mama" diligently watches for. Only this "mama" failed to protect them and left them to the jaws of a hungry canine.

Our beautiful girls.....gone and to a horrible needless death.

I do not blame the dog, as he only did what is natural to him, and that is chase things that run. I do however blame myself for being so trusting of my surroundings and trusting the justice system in the animal kingdom.

Lesson learned, there is none!

Animals do what God instilled in them and that is what we humans call instinct. I am sad that we had a perfectly open coop, on the perfect warm night, and that a perfectly good dog got himself into trouble by killing my perfectly happy and sleeping hens. It was the recipe for a perfect disaster.

I am sad that I will have to wait until my newly ordered chicks are mature enough to lay a bowl full of these...

But I was especially heartbroken to come in from the coop and tell my two little girls what I did, or didn't do, to protect their sweet feathered  pets.

 

I keep all of this in my mind and temper it with prayers for Japan and the tens of thousands of dead and missing there. That there is a nuclear meltdown happening as I type this and my birds are and will be replaced. I'm thankful the loss I experienced were pet chickens and not my husband or children or one of my family members. But I also take comfort in knowing that my God does care about a sweet  flock of feathered chickens and he demonstrates that in His Word. I take comfort in a passage found in Matthew 10:29

"......... But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it."

Blessings today over you, and prayers and Our Fathers comfort for Japan.