Chicken killers

Public Enemy #1



Death toll: over 20 chickens.

We have caught three of them. Leila let one go at the Purdue farm. Our neighbor, Ed, shot the other two.

Picture from Wikipedia


Public Enemy #2


Death toll: 2 of my favorite chickens and 8 eggs.

This is a 'possum that we caught about a month ago and released in the Purdue forestry lands. I didn't take a picture of the one that I killed, but I thought about it as I carried it on the end of the pitchfork.

I just didn't realize I could kill something like that and that I would be proud of it.

I went into the chicken coup to shut them in for the night and when I turned on the light it was eating eggs out of the laying boxes. Opossums are almost cute until their teeth show, they are kinda like the little miner aliens on Galaxy Quest that way.

I grabbed a pipe that was leaned up against the door and waived it in the air. The possum turned around to eat another egg so I hit him with the pipe. It bared its teeth at me and started towards the roost where the chickens were. If it had run away I would have let it be, but now it was life or death. I hit it again and it hid behind a pallet in the corner. I grabbed another copper pipe that was cut at an angle with a sharper point and stabbed it. I held it down with the pipe and hit it with a shovel until it stopped moving. I thought it might be playing dead, so I ran got the pitchfork and stabbed it through.