Close Encounters of the Coon-kind

So bright and early this morning we had our first true encounter with predators in our coop.  We woke up the the dog spazing and the chickens freaking out and when we went out to the coop to investigate and found a family of coons.  Literally 6-7 coons in and around the coop.  Needless to say it was a tension and adrenaline filled half an hour as we proceeded to scare off and kill coons.  We were able to kill 3 and the rest ran off.  At this point we are not sure how many chickens we have lost but there are no dead bodies in the coop so if they did get chickens they dragged them off before we got out there.  We will go count and inspect the ladies later today when we clean the coop, but for now we want them to relax and try to calm down.  Besides I need coffee and maybe something a little stronger! 

This isn't our first time dealing with the loss of chickens to predators.  Our first summer with chickens we lost one to a raccoon and 1 to a hawk.  We were good for about a year and then in the fall when we were on vacation a coon got another one.  So we have known they were around and enjoying our feed, garbage, bird seed and occasional chicken.  However this is the first time the sneaky little buggers got into the coop.

Needless to say today will be spent putting a new latch on the door, cleaning the coop and decompressing. My husband and I have learned that in high stress situations we work really well together, so that's always a plus!