Tragedy in the chicken house

This is my favorite rooster, Bill. He thinks that I am his personal "human" and follows me everywhere. He loves to be picked up and carried around, too. Sometimes if he doesn't think he's getting enough attention from me, he bites the back of my leg!

Right now we have about 40 chickens. All of them sleep on roosts in their house except 6 "babies" who actually don't look like babies any more, just smaller versions of chickens, they "roost" on the floor still. I love them all, they're so entertaining....and of course the "free" eggs are nice, too (we don't slaughter the chickens, I love them too much!)....I think I mentioned that DH's friend Jim is building new quarters for the chickens....but right now they are staying in a rather small tool shed (think large outhouse) where their door is a little hatch that I open when I get up and close before I go to bed. When I close up for the night, I always do a "beak count" to make sure nothing's out of sorts...

Anyhow, last night Jim mentioned that he saw some of the babies "out and about" well after dark. That's unusual, because they usually go to bed when the sun goes down. But I didn't think much of it, because it seems like the young ones really do sometimes like to stay out late...anyhow, when I went to close up the chicken house, one of the babies was sitting half in and half out of the chicken house door. Weird. And when I opened the door, one of the "babies" was on the floor, all mangled, virtually unrecognizable, and except for the baby that was "half in and half out", all the other babies were missing. I went in to get DH, because when things like this happen, I absolutely hate dealing with the carnage, and he and Jim came out and got rid of the dead chicken and set a trap. Whatever it was must've just walked right in and helped themself to chicken dinner. The door was open...

I was lucky, though, because all of the older chickens that roost up high were fine. Later on in the night, Jim saw an opossum nosing around the trap, I'm sure that's the culprit. That would explain why the birds that were higher up were spared. DH tried to be interested, but he went inside.

I was really worried about the three chickens that live in a cage by themselves out there. I've called DH twice today to make sure they are ok, and he acts like it is such an imposition. He's laying in bed watching TV while his friend goes out and tries to protect my chickens. Something's still not right for sure.....I just hope that by the time the "new digs" are ready for the chickens, that we still have some to put in there.....

Epilogue: The rest of the babies apparently ran away when the opossum showed up (that is why Jim saw them "out and about" well after dark), so it appears that we have one dead chicken and one possibly seriously injured hen, but no other casualties as of this time. All the other missing babies were waiting at the door of the chicken house in the morning. DH said he would call me to let me know that all of the chickens are fine, but as usual, he hasn't called, and he is getting so angry with me for calling him, that I don't dare call again....