THE FOX ISN'T CUNNING, HE'S CHICKEN

My luck has run out and I am heartbroken.
For years, friends have marvelled at the way my lovely, funny hens roam willy nilly all over my garden and the fields behind and (I’ve just discovered) my neighbour’s flower bed, without the local foxes catching on. Everyone else's get eaten regularly but mine just seem to bumble on.
Every now and then, someone pulls into the drive saying, ‘Sorry to bother you, but are those your hens wandering down the road?’ I go out and call them and they come running back to me, bowling along as fast as their fluffy little legs will carry them, clucking around my ankles for flapjack or whatever else today’s treat may be.
The kids pick them up and carry them around, chatting to them and stroking them. They love collecting their little eggs and working out how many Bantie eggs makes ‘three medium’ in a cake. When we have barbecues, they cluster around our feet hoping we’ll drop tasty bits of sausage, bread or steak (not chicken, obviously. Unless you’re my mum who can’t see why not).
For the last two years we’ve let the broody ones sit, so at least four of our hens have hatched here. The children have heard the tiny peeping sounds inside the eggs and watched as the bedraggled creature struggles out, fluffs up and becomes a chick within minutes. We’ve even done that thing of reviving them in a bed made of a hat stuffed with a tea towel on the Aga when the mother rejected them.
Sometimes they’re left alone for a bit while I work and as soon as I get home they come straight to me, half-flying, half-running in their haste to get to me. (They’re not great at either, so a combination of running, jumping and flapping seems to work best). I sit on the garden step and tell them what I’ve been up to. One of them hops onto my knee and the others just hang about and listen.
My dog sunbathes happily on the lawn while they forage around him. Even my naughty kitten, who used to love chasing them all over the place till we came charging out of the house, adding our shrieking to their squawking, soon learnt somehow that they are different to other birds and he is not allowed to eat them.
The only problems I’ve ever had have been with dogs. Once a friend arrived, opened her car boot, her Jack Russell shot out and before we even blinked, he had the rooster, Dom, between his teeth.
I lost my second cockerel when a neighbour’s dogs escaped from their garden and came as a pack to hunt hens. Brave little Bolly tried to fight the Alsatians but he never stood a chance.
It’s always the roosters that go first. When an attack begins, the girls scatter and hide and the plucky, beautiful cockerel runs towards the source of danger to defend his girls. He has no tools for the job and it’s heartbreaking.
This time of year is always tricky because a) the foxes are breeding and b) chickens go to bed at dusk. In the winter dusk is about 4.30pm, when there are still loads of noisy people around. But in June, there are three options.
1 – don’t go out till after dusk which right now is about 9.45pm
2 – chase the chickens to bed before you go which takes about three hours.......
3 – risk leaving them out and shut the coop when you get home.
Not long ago I was away for the weekend and a friend was house-sitting for me. On the Saturday night he found himself with exactly this problem and, bless him, he spent hours trying to shepherd my flock into their coop long before they wanted to go.
I laughed my head off when this eminent psychiatrist described running like a Neanderthal around the garden, arms trailing on the lawn, clucking like a mother hen himself, until they were all safely tucked in.
But I’m not laughing any more. I had the same problem myself last night and, instead of chivvying my beautiful hens into an early bed, I left them out in the sunshine.
In the early, dark hours of the morning, I came back to batten down the hatches, peeping in as I always do for a quick head count, to make sure no-one’s missing. The coop was empty.
I searched the garden with a torch and a lump in my throat. Like I said, chickens go to bed at dusk. Without fail. They’re not like the cat, now a naughty teenager who, given half a chance, will stay out on the tiles all night and rock up with the milk in the morning, yawning and demanding food before crashing out on the sofa for the day.
I knew they weren’t just somewhere else. I cried when eventually I found two of the chooks playing dead, one on a garden chair and one in a flower pot. I cried as I put them back gently into the feather-filled coop they had quite clearly run from. And I cried when in daylight this morning I saw the amount of feathers covering the garden and the field. The black feathers in the garden showed where, once again, my valiant rooster, Frizzle, had tried to protect his girls.
Friends have marvelled at my lovely hens, because they thought the fox hadn’t twigged they were there. Now I think the bastard, cowardly fox had known all along, but there’s always lots of people and noise at our house, not to mention the dog. I think he waited for the one occasion when there was no-one to hear, no-one to stop him and then he just went in unchallenged. The dog must have been going mad, locked in the house.
I feel terrible. I don’t know how to protect the two that are left without shutting them in all day. Because I know he’ll back.
And I feel so guilty. I'm so sorry. I should have made sure they were safe before I went out, but I was in a rush as always and I didn’t have time.
And soon my children will be back from school and I will have to tell them. I don't deserve it but wish me luck......