Gee.
It sounds like NO ONE LIKES CLIFFHANGERS!
I will tell you the conclusion to the mystery, but, first, this commercial interruption…
Although I usually write my blogs at night to post the next morning, sometimes that plays havoc with dates… like when you get Wordless Wednesdays on Thursday… this post will come out on Valentine’s Day even though I’m writing it on the 13th. Understand??? This is why I’m forced to interrupt your “murder” mystery with a commercial. On February 14th, I will be speaking at WESTI Ag Days in Worland! Trent Loos, author of Loos Tales, is the main speaker at 10 am, followed by me for a short presentation about… BLOGGING at 11 am! WESTI Ag Days is open to the public, so if you’re around, drop in! The thing I’m hoping to do??? If the setting is favorable, I’ll try to do a Facebook Live of the event. Now, I’m not sure how good their wi-fi is, but I’ll try to set up near a microphone and you can hear and watch! Follow me on Facebook at Red Dirt In My Soul, and you can listen to me for a bit, and perhaps join in, since this is a panel situation, with questions from the audience. You could ask me a question LIVE!!! OOOOooooooh! I’m keeping my fingers crossed this will work!!!
This presentation will be followed immediately by VACATION!!!!! Yup. I know. Details on that to follow! Sometime.
Back to your regularly scheduled mystery.
To recap… the time lapse video that was shot in the chicken coop to catch the perpetrator was lost due to operator error and technical difficulties. You’ll have to rely on hearsay from me…
Spot, the rooster, took his place on the wooden bar… Master of his Tiny Domain. He regularly crowed, letting anyone within earshot know it was HIS place, and HIS girls, and HIS eggs. The grey tiger cat wandered in, and leaped onto the bars, as well. Placing herself in the sunlight and ignoring Spot’s cockadoodles… she began to groom herself, wetting paws with tongue and scrubbing at her ears and face. A hen flew to a nest box and settled herself.
The scene was set. The players on their marks. The only thing lacking was suspenseful music.
The time lapse video ran quickly. Soon the hen was out, and my attention was captured by another hen entering a different nest box. Wait? What was that? I reversed the video. The cat moved quickly into the nest box and lay there… looking on the video like one of my Barred Rock hens. A few minutes passed, the cat moving in the nest box, but I wasn’t able to tell exactly what was going on. She exited, took up her place on the wooden rail and set to cleaning herself once again.
The second hen left her nest box. The cat entered the vacated nest box. Doggone her!!!
Spot stood in his place. Cockledoodlydo-ing… but not chasing the engorged cat away. The cat exited and set to work cleaning herself some more. She waited until two more hens had entered, laid their eggs, and left before entering each nest box. My GoPro was set too high and too far away to see, but when I checked, there was NO broken eggshells or egg slime in the nest boxes. Somehow, that cat ate those eggs WHOLE. She’d sit there enjoying her day, digesting fresh eggs, and wait for each hen to leave.
Mystery solved.
It was Miss Kitty. In the chicken coop. With her big mouth!
The next question to answer will be… What will Carol do???
1) Get rid of the cat… though she is veryveryvery good with grandkids. She just can’t go anywhere that has chickens…
2) Keep the chickens locked in the coop. No more free range. No turning compost/eating bugs/eating kitchen scraps benefits. No chance for cats to enter!
3) Get rid of chickens because all they are doing is producing cat food. 😉
4) After vacation, giving the GoPro one more shot (and losing 3 or 4 eggs) just to get it all on FILM! Or video. Or whatever. And share it with you!
Well, that decision will have to wait a week, but I’ll be thinking on it. Give me your vote! Do you enjoy my chickens? I have a new cat already, but that’s another story… What should I do?
Thanks for hanging in here for the conclusion of the Mystery in the Chicken Coop!
Find me here!
Another vote here to give Miss Kitty the boot, as soon as you can find her a new home. Though,
you have to give her credit for finding her very own egg vending machine! 🙂 Can’t wait to hear about your travels!
Could the cat go home with the grand kids across the mountain? Or maybe they have chickens, too. She is too greedy. If she had only eaten one egg a day, you would have probably thought one hen wasn’t laying and she could have gotten away with it.
Wow, I would never have thought a cat would eat a whole uncracked egg. The cat would have to stay out of the coop.
for sure,keep the chickens, just can’t beat fresh eggs, & find a new home far away for that dirty egg sucking cat,as Johnny Cash sang about a dog!
Interesting that it was a domestic animal instead of a wild critter. I pose this question to you. what would you do if you found it were a fox instead of a kitten? Since it is a domestic animal I would rehome it. Keep the chickens. Thanks for sharing the finding. With regard to your dislike of your Go-Pro. Have you contacted Go-Pro and shared your issues with them? I’d think they would be interested in hearing your concerns and may even have some suggestions to solve your issues.
Good luck with your presentation and have fun on vacation.
What a great mystery. I think I’d keep the chickens and rehouse the cat. Hope your presentation goes well and you have a great vacation. Look forward to photos of both.