No, I didn’t kick any hens. Roosters are chickens, too, and chicken just happens to rhyme with “kickin’.” The feature photo for this post was from the video of me throwing a metal cup at Benedict the Jerk after he attacked me yesterday, and scratched my leg.

But, let’s start with the coons. Raccoons are nasty, vile creatures. They carry untold numbers of diseases and bacteria…you name it. Our worst fear is rabies. It’s so bad here that the USDA dropped half a million oral rabies vaccine (ORV) baits in our neck of the woods (northwest Georgia) just four weeks ago.

As many of you know, ever since Brian broke his back falling nine feet from a ladder almost three weeks ago, I’ve been on farm duty. Several days ago, I ventured into the chicken coop, with my eyes mostly on Benedict the Jerk rooster, and I noticed the chickens’ feeder was empty. I’d just filled it two days prior. It holds a gallon of pellets, and a gallon lasts our four grown hens and the rooster about a week.

I leaned closer and noticed that parts of the plastic feeder were broken.

Then, something red caught my eye in the corner of the coop. Something had torn the lid off the water feeder. I knew what was responsible. Raccoons. They did such a number on Brian’s deer feeder last year that he had to buy a new one, and then reinforce it with chicken wire.

After refilling the feeder, putting the lid on the water gizmo, and giving the hens and Benedict the Jerk (he did not attack me that day) some meal worms, I gathered the eggs and walked back inside. I reported the situation to Brian.

We can’t risk having coons in the chicken coop. The main concerns are:

1. If the chicken food runs out, they’ll kill the chickens. But, they might just kill them for fun. It’s called “surplus killing,” and they can wipe out an entire flock at once. They’ll take a bite or two, leave the dead chicken behind, and then kill another one, and another one, without bothering to eat those.

2. Their very presence creates great risk for our chickens because of disease, and some of those illnesses can be passed into the hens’ eggs.

3. We can’t have coons near the house at all because our grandbabies come to visit!

So, we made a quick plan.

Brian had three raccoon traps in the garage. I won’t get into the logistics (you can google it), but they were in place that evening before dark. The hens and Benedict the Jerk go into the hen house at sunset. We have an automatic door that closes at the same time each night.

I was on the porch around 10:00 p.m. when I heard a kerfuffle out there. Brian crutched himself out there with me (he’s still on his back most of the time). There was a trapped coon, and without getting into details, I very quickly took care of the problem. I didn’t know if shooting a coon was going to bother me or not. It didn’t. I’m an animal lover, but I also understand that you have to sacrifice some for the safety of others, especially little humans!

We got another one later that night. We don’t leave them in the trap because that would be inhumane.

I decided that getting up every two hours during the night to check the traps was just not my cup of tea. So, our son, Max, came to stay with us for the week. I check periodically until he gets home from work at 3:00 a.m. (he’s a welder – third shift), and then he takes over. It’s working well, and we haven’t seen any more evidence of coons making it into the coop again.

And, that brings us to the update on Benedict the Jerk.

This morning, I got out of bed, rubbed my eyes, walked to the front door and put my my “chicken sh*t shoes.” (They used to be called slippers, but they have a different purpose now.) I walked around the corner of the house, pulled the garbage can out to the road and then walked to the coop.

I was still pretty bleary-eyed but I woke RIGHT UP when I saw Benedict approaching me from the right. (He’s attacked me once head-on, and three times from behind my back…all in the past 2 1/2 weeks!)

It happens very quickly, but it always seems like slow-motion. I turned right to face him as he quickly approached. When he’s about to attack, he puffs himself up to make himself look bigger to scare me (it works!) and then aggressively and quickly struts right up to me, or flies right at me, going for the kill.

Now, my right foot still hurts from the first attack, when I put my chicken sh*t shoe under his belly and launched him into mid-air. I had to do that twice in just a few seconds before he figured out that just wasn’t a fun game at all.

So, like I said, my foot still hurts (I still have a knot on top – I think I broke one of the tiny bones in there). I wasn’t consciously thinking about that when he was about to attack. (I was more concerned about him taking flight, and aiming his spurs at my eyeballs!) But my subconscious remembered, because I didn’t put my foot under his belly to play the soaring rooster game again. Instead, I screamed with fury, pushed my foot outward, and the bottom of my chicken sh*t shoe landed squarely on his left side. He tumbled to the right and fell down.

He got back up, shook off the dust, poofed himself up once more, and came at me again.

That time, and with another scream, my instinct-driven leg went a little higher, and my chicken sh*t shoe hit him square on the forehead. He tumbled a bit, fell down, got back up and then looked like he was going to come at me a third time.

I yelled a guttural, low, primal scream at him (think Jurassic Park), and that got his attention. He strutted off to the other side of the coop, still wobbling a bit and shaking his head.

I walked out of the coop, and our new neighbor’s father-in-law was taking their garbage cans to the road. I raised my hand, waved, and said a friendly, “Hello!” He just stared at me.

Our other neighbor also raises chickens (she and her husband have far more experience), and she told me this morning that we need to kill Benedict ASAP before he really hurts me. I want to wait until one of our chicks is bigger (I’m certain we have at least two roosters, and possibly three) until Benedict the Jerk gets put in our freezer. However, with the way things are going, we may not be able to wait.

RELATED

• Brian Fell 9 Feet and Broke His Back! But, HE’S ALIVE and NOT Paralyzed!!!
• Why We Had to Call the Sheriff + Brian’s Hidden Injury the Hospital Did NOT Find!
• I Wrestled a Rooster (not Benedict!)…AND WON!!!
• Grandma Badly Broke Her Femur + 2 More Chickens (POOF!) Disappeared!
• Randy the Rooster Pulls Another Prank
• R.I.P. Randy the Rooster – by Brian Whiddon, Managing Editor
• Who’s the Rooster?? – by Brian Whiddon – Managing Editor

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