The chicks are in the coop...and we caught a predator!

Last night we put our chicks in their coop outdoors for the first time since we've had them. The are in a cardboard corral of sorts. It keeps them under the light, near their food and water and out of mischief until they get a bit older and wiser. We have the corral partitioned off until the two batches of chicks get used to being near one another. I don't want any pecking and fighting since one batch is quite a bit bigger than the other.



Last night we got them all settled in and set the live trap outside the coop shed to see if we can catch the coon that has been around lately. Coons love to kill chickens and will kill them just for the heck of it. We will relocate the coon to a nice wooded area far from here if we do catch one.



We had the baby monitor on all night and it wasn't too bad, just quiet, calm peeps and shuffling around once in a while. But about 3am I started thinking that my chicks were making some strange sounds but nothing alarming. I went back to sleep and when I got up at 5am, I could still hear this strange sound coming from the baby monitor!




It almost sounded like meowing! I went outside (without a camera, darn it!) and saw gleaming, glowing eyes in the live trap!! I didn't know coons could sound like a cat! I went and got Andy who said he also heard the strange noises. He went out and yes, we did have a neighbor cat in our live trap!! Andy let him go and he ran as fast as his little legs could carry him over the fence and far far away!! Even tho he had a nice hardy meal of Vienna sausages, I doubt that he'll be back for quite a while.



The chicks did great...the cat wasn't hurt...and our baby monitor worked very well. I love that it picks up sounds outside the shed. That's where all the commotion will be IF a coon tries to break in to get our chicks!