Welcome to the Country

The first week we were at our place, we were woken up around 1:30am to a shotgun blast. Gun shots don't raise the same kind of alarm as they do in town. But this was our first week, so we got up to investigate.


Over at Eric and Lola's place, Eric was headed over to the trailer shotgun in hand. Apparently a racoon got in the chicken coop, by scaling a tree and dropping in off a low hanging branch, and picked a fight with the rooster. Roosters are tough and mean, but racoons are bigger and stronger. This particular tangle left the rooster almost featherless and dazed. Eric was able to get a clear shot at the racoon before the it killed the rooster. The racoon was hit but not killed; it bolted up and over the fence and under the trailer in the driveway. Eric had to shimmy under the trailer and finish the job.


The rooster was worse for the wear. But he hung in, his feathers came back and he survived.


The racoon's tail got nailed up on the outside of the coop, along with 3 previous kills, as a warning to others. It must have work, because since then we, and Eric and Lola, haven't had problems with the racoons. Now onto the deer infestation!