Faithful readers will recall a recent post about a wild animal raiding the chicken yard. In that previous post I said,
If it is a fox I think the layout of the chicken yard leaves me with the only choice of hoping there is such a ruckus the next time he comes that I catch him in the act. I don’t think I can catch him with a trap. If it is an opossum, I think I might have a plan. When the human sized chicken house door is shut there is a small opening in the bottom of the door for the chickens to enter and exit through. This also creates the point of entry for the opossum. Opossums are nowhere near as bright as foxes, so I’m hoping if I put a trap on the inside of the door the opossum with enter the chicken house expecting to raid the nests and find himself trapped.
Well, it took me awhile to get around to setting up the trap. It was always one more thing to do in a busy day and it would easily slip from my mind . . . until I came out one morning out found the nests full of broken eggs. Twice, recently, I forgot to collect the eggs in the evening and the next morning I went out and discovered broken egg after broken egg. On occasion a hen will “go bad” and start breaking and eating eggs. But they do it during the day. They don’t slip off their roost at the stroke of midnight and pilfer the nests. No, I was almost 100% certain someone else was raiding the nests.
Criminal activity. To come out two mornings and find the nests desecrated finally spurred me to action. I made sure I remembered to take the wire cage and set it up in the entrance to the chicken house.
The day before yesterday I baited the trap with dinner scraps. No catch. Then last night I baited the trap with two eggs. I figured if our little felon liked eggs so much it might make a more tempting target. And if nobody showed up I could just take the eggs inside with no mess.
But somebody did show up. This morning I went out to feed the chickens and the trap was triggered. I peered through the crack in the door and saw the face of an opossum staring back. Caught. Caught red-handed with two eggs. Well, where two eggs had been. He ate the evidence.
Guilty of plundering chicken nests, and suspect in the death of a duck. I got the gun.
Case closed. No prisoners.
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