We’ve had a rough year with our farm animals.

One night a few months ago, I forgot to lock the duckies in the house at dusk. The next morning I found feathers and our drake missing. Knowing that I was responsible has been hard to accept. I set a ducky alarm on my phone that rings every night so that I won’t forget. I put a camera outside their house, and each night for the next few days, the raccoons returned and did all they could to try to open the duck house.

This spring, we let the chickens free-range and lost not one but two to a fox in the same day. I heard the commotion and saw the fox snatch one of our girls and run with it. Screaming bloody murder, I chased after it. I’m not sure what I would have done if I’d caught up with it. The chickens haven’t been outside of the coop or run since.

Earlier in the week, I heard Paul yell, “a fox has one of the ducks!” Hannah and I raced out of the house – screaming bloody murder. She ran to the duck house, and I went in pursuit of the fox. Again. Hannah hollered out that it wasn’t a fox but a bobcat. It surely was; it was grayish, big, and stocky without the long tail. The fence slowed him down – between that and our yelling, the bobcat dropped the duck. Doodle Duck raced back across the icy pond for the yard, and the bobcat scrambled to get across the fence – away from me. Once we got everyone safe, we explored and found the tracks in the snow. The bobcat had slinked through the woods to stalk before snatching her. There are drag marks in the snow where it hauled Doodle across the pond. A few lost feathers, but no blood. We were so relieved – and grateful. Quite the adrenaline rush for all of us.

Today, Hannah reported that the bobcat is back – that there are tracks all around the chicken coop. The ducks are on lock-down until the pond ice has melted in the spring, and Gidget is under strict supervision outside.

It was definitely a close call.