Last night we had our first real calamity raising chickens. Our son was in charge of closing up the coop at nightfall because I was not home. However, he forgot to do it and by the time he remembered he went out and discovered 5 possums in the coop and our Cuckoo Maran rooster, Coke, lying dead on the floor. He rushed in the house to call me. By the time he got back out to the coop the possums were gone. So we had our first loss due to predator issues. It's a good thing our son passed hunter safety a few weeks ago because he can definitely work on eliminating this large population of predators.We still have our rooster, Cocky, who is an off-spring of our original rooster, LeRoy. But I am very disappointed about the loss of Coke. I was planning on isolating him with the five Cuckoo Maran hens we have and hatching out more purebred chicks. I love these chickens because they lay very dark brown eggs and it broadens the spectrum of colors of our chickens' eggs. A new Araucana rooster will be coming in early April that I plan to breed with our three Araucana hens for more purebred Araucana chicks, so I still have that to look forward to. Araucana eggs are also delightful as they can range in color from greenish to bluish to pinkish and they are so pretty along side the light brown and dark brown eggs from the other chickens.
I guess I'll have to take a picture of a typical dozen eggs we get so you can see the large color range.
Say a prayer that we get the possums before the possums get the chickens.
