Assassination

There's been too many forest stuff going on so I thought I should update with a couple more pictures from the garden now.
By the way now that spring is upon us, I took a tour to the local park and picked a few frog babies home and threw in the lake. Let's see if they run away this year too.

The plum tree has gone from flower mode to leaf mode

The cherry sapling and the peach are also growing fine. The cherry never bloomed though but now it is full of baby leafs. I am afraid I may have planted those too shallow and on top of hard clay so soon they will stop growing and become midget trees or not fruit or something of that nature.

The cherry

The peach with a few pink flowers

One morning when I went to pick up eggs, I saw that 3 out of 4 eggs in the nest were broken and it was a big mess. I guessed that one of the hens must be moody or her hormones are making her act weird and soon she will be over it. I hoped the hens don't develop a taste for their own eggs and start eating them before I get to them. I threw out the broken eggs and cleaned up in the nest.

broken eggs and things

That day passed and I forgot about the eggs. That night around 9.30 I heard one of the hens SCREAM like she was dying. Then I heard flap flap and more and MUCH LOUDER screams and it wouldn't stop. I rushed out with a torch and was right at the chicken run maybe 1 minute after the first scream had come. By then it was all silent.
I found a lot of white feathers all around the run, and assumed the worst, that some cat or tanuki or some other wild animal had somehow found their way inside the run and coop, and had picked up a chicken and killed it and run off with it. At the same time I connected the dots with the eggs I found that morning.
I looked around a little and saw the white hen's body on the ground and just then heard a rustle in the nearby tree in the run. I pointed the torch to that direction but couldn't make out any eyes or any animals. The rustle stopped so I guess whatever animal it was had escaped now. I looked closer at the white hen and saw that her eyes were open, and she was slowly breathing but not moving. I started slowly clapping her to see where she was hurt, and saw that her neck was wounded badly. Blood was flowing out evenly from both sides of her neck, so I supposed she would die in a few more minutes. By then she got a bit of energy somehow and tried getting to her feet and walk away but didn't make it far. I hugged her, trying to put pressure on her wounds as much as it went and took her inside.
Strangely the 3 cats did not go completely crazy when they saw the hen. Just sniffed at her slowly and acted a bit worried in general. I washed the hen's neck and wound with alcohol and patched her up with a bit of bandage. It was hard to estimate how hard I could wrap the bandage without strangling her but at the same time put enough pressure to stop the bleeding. Somehow I did it though.
Then I gave her a bit of water and made sure she drank. And I figured that was as much as I could do, so let's leave her to her fate and hope for the best.
I put her together with her friends (who were sound asleep as if nothing had happened) in the coop, and for the first time in a loong time closed and locked the coop door.
The next day I checked the run and although I couldn't find any obvious holes or paths leading in, I put a bit of extra net just to make sure. The white hen had survived the night, thank Bob. I came to think about that it could actually have been a snake... that would explain the interest in the eggs, and also the wounds on both sides of the hen's neck and not having ran away with the hen. It would also explain how it got in through the holes in the net.
It has now been a few days and the white hen has been spending her whole days inside the coop, sitting inside one of the nests. I put up extra water and food in the coop especially for her, and also fed her worms so she would heal faster. This morning although it was raining cats and dogs she slowly walked out and had a bit of stroll and drank some water that had accumulated on some leafs. I hope I can remove the bandage this weekend.

White hen with bandage

I did notice yesterday that she was bleeding anew from her crown. But not sure why... Today it was fine again.

White hen with bandage, version 2

Please don't die, Big Momma.
I am now locking their door every night, just to be safe.