“Rundy, something’s got one of the chickens.”
“Huh?” I sat up in bed to see Titi standing in the doorway.
“Something is in the chicken house. I can hear one of the chicken’s screaming.”
“Oh.” My first thought was to turn over in bed and forget about it. The chicken must be a goner, the animal will probably be gone, and I don’t feel like getting out of bed.
“Rundy, something has got a chicken!”
The diligent part of my brain finally kicks in.
“All right, all right. I’m coming!” If I get out there fast maybe I’ll catch the culprit.
I scramble downstairs without dressing, grab the .22 rifle and the clip. Some people still haven’t gone to bed yet and come wandering around to see what all the excitement is about. “I need a flashlight,” I tell them. “And I need someone to hold the flashlight!”
Evan finds a flashlight, and is nominated to accompany me.
It is dark outside and now the chicken house is silent. There is a bit of nerves as one wonders exactly what we are going to find, some animal suddenly appearing in the light. Raccoon, opossum, skunk, coyote? The flashlight gives out a thin beam of light which leaves most of the chicken yard in darkness. The chicken house door hangs open. Did the animal already leave, or is it in there feasting on something?
I quickly discover that you can’t have someone else hold the flashlight for you when you’re looking for something in the dark you’re supposed to be shooting. Invariably the other person shines the flashlight where you’re not looking. Inconvenient as it is, I end up taking the flashlight from Evan so I can enter the chicken house and see where I am going, and what corners I want to check for some hiding animal.
I’m feeling under-prepared. When going out into the night to deal with an unknown wild animal one prefers to be fully dressed, with very sturdy boots and a very powerful light. I’m barefoot and in my underwear and the flashlight momentarily flickers out while I’m entering the chicken house. It comes back on, but just about the worse thing I can think of at that moment is being caught in the cramped chicken house in my underwear in the dark with some animal. Stupid flashlight, I think.
An inspection from the doorway shows all the chickens sitting undisturbed on their roosts. No feathers on the ground, no blood, no mangled bodies. Either the thing . . . the animal . . . has made a quick escape or it is hiding in one of the chicken hutches. If it is something in a chicken hutch it probably is an opossum raiding eggs. But I really don’t want to play peek-around-the-corner with some opossum.
I stand in the entrance listening, undecided. Then I hear a faint scrape and rustle and I know there is something in there. About that time I remember that a miniature banty hen was sitting on a nest of eggs underneath the chicken hutches. Opossum comes looking for eggs and finds chicken sitting on nest. Now I understood what had happened, and it was time to add a little surprise to the proceedings.
Easing my way to the right, I crouched down for a view underneath the hutches. I’m just about down on the floor before I finally catch sight of the hairy body. Then I see the luminescent eyes staring back at me. Opossums are very stupid. When they feel threatened they will play dead, and often they don’t feel threatened when they should. This was one of those occasions. Mr. Opossum was just caught red-handed raiding a chicken nest–he doesn’t play dead, and he doesn’t make a break for it. He simply stands there and stares out at me.
Which is a good thing, because when you have a pathetically weak flashlight it’s very hard to aim a rifle in the dark. Holding the rifle with one hand doesn’t help, but the real problem is getting the flashlight so that it shines on the target and on both ends of your barrel so you can line up both ends of the sight.
My first shot missed. The opossum merely shuffled his feet a bit. Like I said, not the brightest bulb in the package. I aimed more carefully the second time, making sure I had everything lined up right in the middle of his forehead before I plugged him.
The impact flipped him over onto his side. It was a fatal shot, I’m sure, but I plugged him a few more times just to hurry him along. When rousted out of bed by attempted egg stealing and chicken murder I’m not particularly lenient.
I cleaned up the corpse the next day, surprised to find the banty still alive, and now back on the nest. Unfortunately, I don’t think she is going to hatch anything. I think she was off the nest for hours after the attack, and she has been sitting erratically since.
When I went back to bed after killing the opossum and unloading the .22 Dad stuck his head in the bedroom and said, “So what is this blog post going to be? The Savior in Underpants?”
Today’s title is for him.
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