Things that go BUMP! in the night...

Last night was interesting....

Somewhere around midnight mom and dad heard a loud noise coming from our barn; worried that something might be getting our chickens, they both went outside. When they were about half-way to the barn, they heard a terrific WHAM!! against the barn door! They ran back inside and dad grabbed our .22, Chris went back out with him this time. So we girls stayed inside.... waiting....

Dad opened one of the barn doors and peeked inside.... He could hear a low "grrrrrrr" coming from very close by. He closed that door and tried peering through another door. As soon as he opened the door, a chicken came tearing out and ran into the inky night! A few yards away dad could see our barn cat, Olivia, standing with her fur on end, and it was she that was growling. Behind my rabbit cage, in the barn, there is a gate leaning up against the wall; dad shone his light over at the cage and saw.... one green glowing eye staring from behind the gate.... The "thing" moved and there were now two glowing eyes, still staring. Dad had no idea what it was since it was so dark, until the creature moved again and dad was able to see the furry, striped tail that could only belong to a crafty raccoon!


Apparently there was a great big raccoon in our barn chasing our Black Austrolorp hen! But, Olivia, decided that he was too close to her kittens for comfort (oh yeah, I need to blog about her kittens) and got in the way, foiling the masked thief's plan. So the racket mom and dad heard was most likely the raccoon, the hen and the cat thumping and bumping all over the place.

As soon as dad and Chris got into the barn, the coward of a 'coon turned tail and started to run away. He was on top of our hay manger when dad had him in the gun's target, but he didn't shoot, as there wouldn't have been a way to get the raccoon out of the manger if he fell in, because it's so deep. The raccoon slipped out the bottom of one of the other barn doors and ran away.

And what of the hen that escaped the clutches of the masked villain? Well, we looked everywhere for her (Emily and I went out to help look) but there was no trace of her. It was almost kind of comical, we were walking up to the house and dad commented that "There's still some hope", no sooner had he finished saying that, we heard a pack of coyotes wailing, not too far off.

But, there is good news! This morning, after looking everywhere for her I found her in the middle stall in our barn taking a dust bath as nice as you please! As dad would say: "It's always in the last place you look." ;D

All's well that ends well I guess. :)

We are hoping that the raccoon won't come back, but who can say? After all, he knows that there's a whole coop full of sleepy birds here now. Luckily, we will be getting one of our old goats back either tomorrow or on Wednesday, if this guy is anything like his mother was, well, I feel bad for the raccoon if he bumps into the goat.... ;)

What a night...

~Caitlyn