Hubby had an early morning (read as all day) heart cath (routine checkup, he is a 2x heart transplant recipient and one kidney and is in chronic rejection of his heart). Before we left, we opened the coops so that the chickens could free range as usual. All went exceedingly well, we came home and I saw all of my chickens and ducks and one caged but very happy rabbit were playing in the yard, drinking from the duck pool (as usual, walking straight past the nice fresh clean water to drink from duck poo pond). Anyway, as it was getting dark, I went out to close up the coops and do my usual head count when I discovered my super sweet and precious buff orpington, Buttercup was dead and mangled on the ground in the coop and one of my almost 8 week old Ameracaunas, Taffy, is completely missing and the only signs of her are the enormous amount of feathers on the ground in the coop. That tells me that whatever got them, cornered them in the coop or caught them as they were putting themselves to bed. This also tells me that this all happened as I sat in my living room and didn't hear a thing. Our cats also appear to be spooked so I am not sure what got them. I know in the past that the cats have fought tooth and nail to protect mama's feather babies, even coming home wearing the badge of skunk scent from time to time. They are not afraid to take on other cats, opossum, or skunks - we know from experience. A neighbor area dog came around recently(we live in the country, while we don't have a great deal of land - 1 acre, we don't live close at all to any dog owners), but the dog was super friendly and didn't bother the animals for the several days he kept popping up. There are fox, bobcats and bear in the area, but we have never had anything more than dear, opossum, skunks and some gophers to deal with on our property. We have a very solid varmint protection system for while they are cooped up, but they free range during the day and have trees, bushes, and a deck (just to name a few) they can dart under for protection.
Now I get to my question, what to do with my dead chicken's carcass. With my husband having just had a heart cath and me unable to do just about anything physical, we cannot dig a grave deep enough to prevent critters from digging it up. Our teenage son is away at youth camp this week, as is my dad (the other physical labor alternative in times of a pinch). I was thinking we need to burn it, but being it's after 10pm here, we cannot burn it now. The hens and ducks had been sitting staring at the body on the floor and cried and whimpered with me.
We had a rooster up until recently, but he was so mean we were being torn up and were at great risk of being knocked down by him so he could have inflicted much more serious injury. We found him a nice home in the mountains where a family needed a mean rooster to protect their hens from area dogs.
We have 5 week old barnyard mix hatchlings in our small coop and know we have at least four cockerels in the mix that we will keep until we can decide which one or two are the best at their jobs without hurting us.
I know I am rambling, please forgive me. I am just really taking it hard. Normally, I would have taken my silkies outside upon returning home but didn't feel right about taking them out today. I am so glad I didn't. They are my sweet puffballs and that would have hurt even more.