moving house

We know that moving the ducks and chickens will not solve the 'fox situation', but foxes are opportunists extraordinaires, and anything that reduces their opportunities, increases the chances of survival for our birds.

Now, how to do this. The fencing for the enclosure has to be put up first, but not completely, so the sheds can be lifted in. Then the fencing has to be closed in around them - gates (and combinations thereof) can be left till another day. This is difficult enough to achieve with a reluctant husband swearing silently under his breath, but becoming steadily more audible after a day and night of torrential rain. I do not have the heart to remind Henry, that this was his idea. I myself, did not dare to suggest such a radical, costly and time-consuming plan, to save what is at the moment, a costly and time-consuming hobby.

The icing on the cake, so to speak, is to work out how to move housing and birds, in reasonable daylight hours, when enough hands are available to help, without leaving any birds behind, as they will try and return to where their sheds used to be. It reminds me of the story of the farmer who has to ferry across the river, a fox, a rabbit and a sack of carrots, but he can only fit 2 items in his rowing boat at any one time.

We get my Dad to help us one evening, and settle on moving duck house, then catching ducks and carrying them - then waiting until dusk. We coax chickens into their shed and move the whole lot in one go. Then we fence round them in the dark and in the rain. The ground is churned up from the loadall, and reached saturation point many hours ago! It looks like a film set for a world war I movie. I guess this is our own war against the fox, and we fence up like we mean it - and we have rolls of barbed wire too.