Actually, the following story is more CSI than Law & Order Criminal Intent but since I spent the better part of a year sitting on my couch nursing baby Prince while watching every rerun of Law & Order shown on TNT, I have much more affinity for the L&O franchise than the CSI franchise.
I had been feeling pretty proud that we managed to get through the brutal winter without losing a single chicken to a hungry desperate predator, but that luck ran out a couple of weeks ago in the middle of a warm weekend, night when the husband and I were woken by the panicky sounds of a lone chicken in the front yard.
The husband ran out the door with his 22, clad only in his underwear and a headlamp. Within a few minutes I heard, "Pow... Pow.. Pow. PowPowPowPow." Apparently, it is not easy to look through a scope while wearing a bright light on your forehead, so the first couple of shots did nothing but piss off the skunk that was trying to steal our chicken. The skunk charged the near naked marksman causing him to go Rambo on the stinker. The skunk dropped the chicken and ran across the street. I was shocked. I thought skunks were harmless little herbivores who occasionally woo black cats with white paint spilt down their backs; not vicious chicken killers.
Unfortunately, the chicken was pretty beaten up and the only thing we could do was put her down. She was one of our sweet but stupid Faverolle aunties and though she was supposed to be one of the victims of the bipedal chicken killers last Fall, she had received a Presidential pardon when it got too cold too quickly for butchering chickens outdoors.
Since the husband managed to hit the skunk, we felt confident the threat was gone.
A few days later, we were woken again by the frantic cries of a chicken and we again ran out in our skivvies with flashlights and weapons. Something black ran across the street and we scanned the yard for signs of a struggle. My flashlight caught sight of a chicken lying feet up in a pile of feathers. Her little legs were pumping up and down in rhythm with her heavy breathing. I was sure she was a goner and for a moment I even thought she was headless, but when the Husband approached her from behind she jumped up and ran across the coop. I scooped her up and saw that all of the feathers on her belly had been ripped out, but she didn't have a scratch on her. It was a pretty impressive plucking job. A professional waxing couldn't have produced better results.
I put the chicken in the chicken house and we went back to bed. Two hours later, we were woken again. This time another hen was wandering around the yard, feathers intact and there was no sign of her attacker.
To set the record straight, not all of our hens go in the chicken house at night. Quite a few prefer to spend their nights high in the trees cooled by an evening breeze. When the first bird was taken by the skunk, I figured she couldn't make it into the tree, but I knew the two who had just ended up on the ground were strong flyers and always slept on the upper branches. I channeled my inner Eames and deduced that our perp was either a black cat or a Fisher, since whatever was going after our birds was a deft climber.
The husband decided on a stakeout as a way to catch the brazen villain. If there is one thing we have learned from our obsessive viewing of Law and Order Criminal Intent, it is that the suspect always gets cocky and falls right into Eames and Goren's trap.
Unfortunately, our phantom menace was a little too slick for our detective work and managed to evade the husband's night watch. Opting against another go at the chickens, it decided on duck hunting instead. Mad quacking ensued but the smart ducks headed straight for the security of the pond and the assailant again vanished.
The next day, we turned from L&O to another favorite show, "The Profiler." Though my hair is not quite as awesome as my heroine, Sam's, I think she would be proud of how we reviewed the case to come up with a reasonable profile for our suspect:
Dark fur
7-12 lbs
Excellent night vision
Fast
Stealth
Good climber
Non-swimmer
Lover of poultry
Most likely the culprit is a black cat down the road the boys and I watched stalk and intimidate a small fox when we were coming home from school one afternoon, but a Fisher sounds much more mysterious and sexy. In fact, I think I will go with escaped Black Panther. That sounds really dangerous.
Whatever it is, it has not returned in over a week. My guess is it's probably casing the joint; waiting for us to let our guard down. Little does it know, it is dealing with the detectives of the major case squad at the Petite Farmette. We will be ready and waiting in our underwear, 22 under the mattress and new batteries in our headlamps.
