Chicken wranglin'...

I have owned chickens for years and thoroughly enjoy them. Unfortunately, at also means an ongoing struggle with predators. Namely, raccoons!

We built a hen house with a chain link chicken yard, in which they are safe. I like to let them free-range during the day and lock them back up at night. Early spring they began to migrate to roosting in the barn at night. This is not a safe location! Long story short my beautiful flock of 6 ducks and 30+ chickens quickly was reduced to no ducks, one rooster and 5 hens.

Thankfully Sylvia has survived. She is a beautiful silver Araucana who lays green eggs. The only way we would keep the remaining chickens alive was to get them roosting back in the secure hen house. Which would require catching them and keeping them "locked up" for a week or so to retrain them.

I have found the easiest way to capture them is with a fishing net. My first attempt was Sylvia but while I was trying to get her out of the net Mr. Roo came to her rescue. Which quickly prompted me to bring hubby in to help. We were able to capture all of them and they are now safely locked up.

While we didn't get any pictures my barn cam captured a couple funny videos. When you watch keep an eye on Mr. Roo, he is the giant black chicken.