Coop Door Open

“We need to have a little talk,” I said to the flock.  It was just past daylight and I had arrived at the coop knowing full well that the girls and boys would be out and about in the run, waiting for their morning treat.  No need for me to open the coop door and let them out as usual.  I hadn’t closed them in last night.  On purpose.

I had gone down about quarter-to-dark to do just that – close the coop door for the night.  But the door was closed and barred and the chickens were all huddled together under the coop, apparently their answer to being locked away from their roosts.  Wot the heck?

Coop Door Closed

I went into the run, unbarred the coop door and then raised it up, hoping that at least some of the flock would rouse themselves enough to go up the ramp and “to bed” as usual.  I wasn’t completely hopeful, though.  Once chickens nod off, they are well nigh impossible to roust.  Only daylight seems able to do that.  But… two or three rustled themselves out of the dark and into the coop.  Then another and another.  I couldn’t see well enough to be certain if they’d all made it, so I left the coop door open… just in case of a straggler.

It was then that I noticed two eggs laid in the dirt in the run.  Usually, that trick annoys me but this time, it was more proof that someone had locked the hens away from their nest boxes – and from their food, for that matter!  Access to both is through the coop door.  Fortunately, their water trough is in the run, so they did have access to that.

Security Guard Richard Schroeder

After securing the gate into the run, I checked the nest boxes… just in case.  Two eggs!!  Say what?  So, logic says that for part of the day there was an open coop door giving access to their eating/laying/sleeping quarters.  And part of the day they had been locked out.  But by whom and to what purpose?  The flock remains silent.  In fact, eerily so this morning, even when I promised extra treats for a bit of information.

This isn’t the first mysterious happening at the coop.  When Carol was chicken sitting some months ago, the latch keeping the coop door open had been disturbed.  Then it happened on my watch.  Tucker made a ‘fool-proof’ latch – just in case it had previously come undone (twice?) all by itself.  Now… a new mystery.  Perhaps it is time to call in the security guards?