What a miserable day yesterday. It started out pretty good. It actually wasn't raining in the early morning so I went up and turned the compost. Decided to head down to the house for some breakfast afterwards, and thought, oh I'll get the goats some fodder on my way, since there were quite a few branches of gliricidia, cassava and pidgeon pea hanging over the trail.
When I got to the goat pen I realised something was up when they didn't immediately make a run on the fodder. My first fear was that they had succumbed to bloat from too much peanut leaf the night before, but no, they'd been mauled by wild dogs. No wound significant enough to cause death, but two of them Sheba and Kauai had just given up and died anyway. Chocolate the castrated male was in shock, but okay.
It was only when Lorinda came by to get chicken food and I was skinning and gutting Kauai that we realised that the dogs may have got the chooks too. Sure enough, they took out about 20 chooks, leaving us with 3 hens and one rooster.
It is pretty devastating. I don't know how to put a gloss on it. It just really sucks.
I think I am going to build a Fort Know Chicken Coop in the old goat house by the containers, and we will lock them in there every night. It actually won't take that much and I think I can get it dog proof. It will be a straightforward way to collect the manure too. Perhaps in time we can look at building a really solid dogproof mobile chook tractor.
Sigh.