Sharing Chickens with a Bobcat

A couple of months ago, a bobcat took 3 of my chickens while I was trying to figure out who did it.

The first one disappeared from a part of the yard she wasn’t supposed to be in, out in the open with no one around. We fixed the hole in the fence.

The next one was last seen, again where she shouldn’t be; apparently she was able to fly better than we thought. We raised the fence.

The third went missing from her own side of the fence. Now it was confusing. There are a lot of trees above that area. A Coopers or Sharp-shinned Hawk? The chickens were a little big for that, but if not that, then who? We put aviary netting over almost the entire run just in case.

Then one day, I heard a huge squawking in the yard, the grrls were alarming all over the place. I tore outside and there was some kind of creature in the run. In about 1 second I had all these thoughts: “What the hell is that? Beautiful, really. Can’t be a dog. Too…dainty? Yes, but also committed to making that chicken its next meal. It looks like they haven’t gotten their teeth into her. Is it a cat? Naw, WAY too burly for a cat. More like a pit-bull, short fur, pure power in a critter-body, like a bundle of muscle wrapped in gold… HOLY CRAP! It’s a bobcat!”

By this time, the ‘cat had tried to get out of the run several times, climbing the chainlink fence and hitting the aviary netting and falling back down, only to try again and again before finally finding an exit. I was surprised that the thin black plastic netting was strong enough to keep them from getting over, but maybe it was just the shock of hitting something that caused them to fall back to the ground.

(The bird that they’d been trying for looked just a little ruffled and missing a few feathers. Later saw that she’d gotten bit on the head and her eye became infected. We isolated her and treated her eye with silver nitrate. She healed up and went back into the coop.)

For months, we kept the chickens locked up. The coop is technically big enough for them, but they had been brought up roaming the run and they were unhappy. I did some research and learned that bobcats are super stealthy and don’t want to be anywhere around people. They have a route they follow and it seemed we’d broken their routine. We started letting the chickens out again if someone was going to be nearby. That worked for a few weeks.

Yesterday I was in the ‘garage’ (AKA falling down outbuilding with big holes in the sides) and the dogs were out wandering the yard when I heard the girls alarming. It took me about 5 steps to get a line of sight to the back fence. And there was the Bobcat again, with one of my birds in their mouth. They tried to go over the fence and fell back down. Moved over a few feet and stopped. Turned and stopped, just standing there. And just standing there. And standing there. For about 5 seconds I got to be face-to-face with this hunter. Then they easily went up and over the gate.

And I wrote this:
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Over she came the fence
No impediment
All matter-of-fact
Like a trip to the grocery
What should we have for lunch?
Got to get some food.
We even eat the same thing
She enjoys the living meat
My preference is dead
And I don’t want to share
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Blessed be the hunter and the hunted. Blessed be human-power and cat-wisdom, our similarities and our differences. Blessed be the sacrifice. Blessed be.