I always have thought that if something happened to my hens, roosters, or chicks that it wouldn't feel like any big tragedy, but when this theory was tested, it seems I'm a bit more attached to my farm animals than I think. Earlier this year, in last summer, I had a broody hen that sat a pile of eggs and from 7 eggs, 4 hatched. One of the chicks dies right away because I didn't take it out of the coop soon enough, but 3 others survived and grew to be big, beautiful, juvenile chicks. We had them in a small enclosure by our driveway, just outside our fenced yard and the top of the enclosure was covered with bird netting. We realized that this was not very secure, but for all this time, no animals ever tried to breech it. Even while we were gone for several days over Thanksgiving break, the chicks were fine. And then, this morning when I went out to the van for something early in the morning, all that I found was a place where the bird netting had been torn away, piles of feathers, and paw prints in the dirt. Upon closer inspection, I found more feathers and blood on our fence going to the neighbor's property. This was enough to send me into tears over the little chicks I had raised from day one under a heat lamp in a box in the garage until they were 2 month old chicks that actually looked liked miniature hens. I, of course, value human life above all, but I was surprised at how strongly I felt about the life being stolen from my little birds in such a sneaky and unexpected way. Even the Bible says that God watches over the sparrows so if all of God's creatures are important to Him, then I shouldn't feel badly about my natural reaction to the giving and taking of life, even that of a little bird.
So, in this most recent episode of Woman vs. Nature, nature has definitely won. I have to admit that it is a little discouraging battling the wildlife in each and every little endeavor on our property, but I'm thankful that I don't live in a time or place where my actual life depends on it.
