Egg Snatcher

Since it's been colder the chickens haven't been laying as well; instead of 12 eggs a day we were only getting four. We have also noticed that several eggs had been broken and eaten. Sometimes you get a chicken that will peck open and eat her own eggs, so we were trying to keep our eyes open for the offending chicken so we could 'take care' of her.

Last night Art came running into the house and asked me to go upstairs and get the gun because there was an opossum in the hen house. When he was gathering eggs he reached into one of the brooder boxes and it bared it's teeth and hissed at him and didn't play dead like everyone tells you (come to think of it, I have yet to have an oppossum play dead, they're always hissing). You don't expect to see an opossum taking up residence in a brooder box so it scared the crap out of Art. The chickens however, which are borderline mentally challenged, seemed wholly unperturbed by their newest bedmate.

Of course I went with Art, camera in hand, to get a picture! The opossum was extremely bold, just sitting in the brooder snacking on eggs.

Needless to say, the offending opossum is no more.