More Fun than a Skunk in a Hen House

Here at the Run, there's always something going on. We never have peace and quiet...we have quite a few rants and ruckuses, squeals, peals, and of late, squawks as well. If perchance we do happen to have a bit of quiet time, I guarantee something is going to pop up unexpectedly.

Tonight for instance, by 9pm both kids were in bed a-snooze, I kept busy making newspaper pots for seedlings and Jeff was fiddling around on the computer. I reminded him that the hen house was open and needed shut before we turned in for the night. So he pulled on his knee-high muck boots, grabbed a flashlight and headed out to do a head-count and close up the coop. 3 seconds later I hear a shriek...as it turned out it was Jeff, screaming like a woman. Upon opening the coop to count the chicks, he found a skunk. Just a baby, but a skunk no less.

So being the man he is, Jeff comes back inside to find a bigger flash light; oh, and probably change his drawers. We watched out the kitchen window for a few minutes and noticed that this skunk wasn't startled...it was bedding down in the nest box. It had found a warm safe nest with water and food close-by and was in no hurry to leave. In all the commotion, however, one of the Frizzles jumped ship, er, coop, and ran around the backyard making a bigger ruckus than I ever imagined that 3 pound fluff-ball could possibly make.

Our solution to the skunk problem? Snowballs. Jeff picked up small chunks of slushy snow and chucked it at the skunk until it finally gave up the nest and ran into the run under the chicken house. Meanwhile Miss Frizzle is running around raising all kinds of hell.....not because of the skunk...she didn't mind the skunk. She was unhappy about being out of the coop at night. It took both of us to catch that furball and put her back into the coop, all the while the skunk is cornered in the run underneath the coop. We closed up the hens and ran inside to watch out the window, thankful we didn't get sprayed, and about 30 seconds later the skunk slinked out of the run and headed off to who-knows-where.

It just goes to show you; there's simply nothing more fun than a skunk in a hen house.