RIP, Gigi

In the five years that we've had chickens, we've never lost a single one to predators - until this week.

Earlier in the week, Tom and I went out to check the coop before a big storm blew through, and we discovered a single chicken leg caught in the top of the 8-foot fence that surrounds the large chicken yard. (There's so much vegetation in it that we call it the Chicken Jungle.)

Then this morning, Tom found a whole pile of feathers in the chicken yard and realized that Gigi, the last of our original flock from five years ago, was gone.

Gigi, the beautiful speckled hen we had since 2007.

I don't mind saying that when Tom told me she was gone, I cried. Gigi, short for Grousy Girl, was one of our original flock. She was such a gentle bird. Back in her day, she was a good layer, giving us two or three eggs a day. And after she stopped laying, she was just a nice bird to have around. She would jump up into my lap when I came into the coop to collect eggs, she would let Colden stroke her feathers, and she was a good mama hen to the other birds.

Tom is going to look into some kind of netting to put over the top of the chicken run to prevent this hawk (which is what we figure it is) from eating any more of our birds.

Bummer. What a way to start the day.