Last night we decided to go to the Greeley Moonlight Bike Ride sponsored and put on by the Greeley Police Officers’ Association. Registration was at 8:30pm and the ride was to start at 9pm. Unfortunately for us, we are now on the chickens’ schedule because we have to lock them up at night to protect them from attack which means we had to wait for them to go in their coop at dusk. When they finally put themselves to bed, we closed them up and were on our way to the Greeley Police Station on bikes.

On my bike on our way there

The Police Station is only probably about 1-2 miles from our house, so we were there in short order. They had an acoustic guitar band called Girls with Guitars playing when we arrived. We signed in, grabbed a free snack and enjoyed the music.

We had encouraged our friends Matt and Jamie (and their daughter Hailee) to come, but didn’t think they would. They surprised us by showing!

Matt and Britton at Starbucks

Me and Jamie with Police Car

The whole event is free and sponsored by area businesses in addition to the Greeley Police Department. They said they’ve been doing it for 16 years! How did we miss this all the years before? The police rode with us and police cars blocked off whole streets as we rode.

This is route- about 12 miles round trip

We rode from the police station on 10th Street went east on 8th Street, rode past downtown, rode up through UNC’s campus and Reservoir Rd, through Sanborn Park where boy scouts had set up luminaries down the path. It was really cool because they glowed as we rode past the lake. Then we stopped at the Starbucks in Westlake Plaza where they served us free drinks. That was our half-way point. At this point we could see how many people came out by the sheer number of bikes!

And of course, all the people. Here they (we) are waiting for them to call out the door prizes of which Britton won one!

Police guy is on the table yelling out prizes

From there we rode up 20th Street  to near 47th Ave and then turned into a neighborhood near 16th Street, rode through Bittersweet Park where the sprinklers were on! Everyone got soaked, it was pretty cool. Then we headed back in a round about way to the police station. I was amazed at the number of people who crashed going that slow. It was kind of funny once you knew they were ok. Now I know why they wanted everyone to have a helmet and light on their bike although they didn’t turn anyone away if they didn’t have either.

Once we were back at the police station they had free sandwiches from Jimmy Johns and drinks from a company called Oogave. They gave out a few more prizes and showed some biking clips on the big movie screen -a bike-in movie! We said goodbye to Matt and Jamie and headed back home by about midnight. And yes, the chickens were sleeping safe and sound.

Rose in the flower garden enjoying the display as well

And for you chicken fans….

We set the trap up again and are trying to decide what to do when we catch him this time.  Maybe just spray him with the hose and hope he gets the point?  Drive him further away?  Any ideas?

Well, I thought I saw a cat the night the chickens were attacked. It jumped like a cat, it was black and sleek, had a long, thin tail and nails that scratched the front of the coop upon its return.  I think I may have talked myself out of it being a cat because we’ve never had any problems with cats and the chickens.  Ever.

I got a trap on loan from a guy I work with and figured we could try to catch whatever it was.

Setting up the trap

First we had to set the trap. On our first attempt we actually caught…Kitty! So we had to bring him inside for the night. Then, about 2:30am, I heard the SNAP of the trap. I ran out to see what we caught. I couldn’t tell right away, but with the mewing I knew it was a cat. I left him out there till the sun rose and when I looked in, it was Atchpay!  Atchpay completely tweaked out, he looks a bit psycho now…

Guess who? Atchpay

This stray that frequents our backyard fits the description of the perpetrator and got snagged in the trap about the same time.  So we decided to relocate him just in case.  He is pretty feral and definitely wasn’t comfortable being that close to me.   We drove about 10 miles north of town.  Cassie wanted to go further, but I felt we had gone far enough.  We will see.

Atchpay’s New Home -A farm field out of town about 10 miles

For those of you that aren’t familiar with how a live trap works, Schnoodle will demonstrate the live trap. We put cheese in there all the way to the back, when she steps on the lever it shuts behind her.

We locked up the coop really good and after some tossing and turning, we finally got back to sleep.

Then at about 3am, I woke up hearing the chickens fluttering around and making noise, though not as noisy as the earlier episode. I woke up Britton and he ran to the window. He said he could hear the creature scratching on the coop, but couldn’t get in. When Britton opened the window next to the coop, the Thing took off again right over the back fence to the empty field. Again, a blur.  It makes me wonder where Kitty was when all of this was happening since he is an outdoor cat.

Many of Greenfoot’s wing and back feathers

Losing feathers is actually an antipredation defense to help them get out of the grips of harm’s way. When a predator tries to grab them, the feathers tear loose and all the predator has is a handful (pawful) or mouthful of feathers, but the bird (hopefully, and in this case) survives.

Omelette is missing front feathers

Greenfoot’s wing feathers and some back feathers are completely gone

We’re not sure what it was, but it could possibly be a raccoon, weasel, skunk or maybe a fox, but it didn’t have a fluffy tail or obvious scent, so I am leaning toward weasel or mink. We laid in bed talking about possible solutions for about an hour (until 4am). We thought of making them live in a chicken run, but 1) it’s a lot of work to build one, 2) they will wreck the yard if it stays in only one place too long, 3) I wouldn’t want to be completely locked up my whole life, 4) the creature struck in the middle of the night, so it is unlikely it would come during the day.

We also talked about getting a gun of some sort to shoot it, but we were afraid we might mess up our fence or accidentally shoot Kitty or something. We don’t own a gun, but I can see how a farmer or rancher would need one! We also talked about electrifying our back fence -which might work, but is expensive. We are probably going to try and find a live-trap and see if we can’t catch this thing.

What do you think? Any ideas what it could be? Any ideas of how to get rid of it? Anyone have a trap they could loan us? Part of this was our fault. We had been spoiled with never having an incident so we got lazy and didn’t shut them in securely every night. That might be all we need to do to keep them safe, but I guess it’s kind of like people who leave their doors unlocked every night and then the one night someone breaks in you say, ‘well we should have locked it’.

At least everyone made it through ok. I left Schnoodle outside today to keep an eye on things while we’re at work. Not that a blind, deaf 13-year old dog could be of much help, but maybe it will help as a deterrent. Britton also “marked his/our territory” (peed on the fence) this morning as some of the advice to keep predators away suggests to do.

Argh. What a long, restless night -for all of us.

Football

Kitty

Three brown hens

Hello! Schnoodle, Greenfoot and Henrietta

East meets west, but the road is Closed.

We actually didn’t encounter too much resistance to jump the signs and get a closer look.  This is a small ditch, and it took out the trail completely.

Like I said, it used to be a small ditch.

You can see where its widening out

There are all kinds of news reports going on talking about the flooding.  Its only a few miles from our house too!  But all is dry here, so all in all a nice night to lay in the grass and watch the chickens and pets in the lawn.

Writing this post for LifeTransPlanet in the yard!