This time there was ten of them. And they lasted about a week. Now, six of them are dead, victims to a cat. Probably the same stupid cat that massacred the initial batch. I’ve still got four though, and my friend Gabriel and I are doing everything we can to ensure that these four make it. So we decided to try and teach this cat a lesson. And our attempt completely backfired in a phenomenal fashion.
Gabriel sent me to the market to pick up some raw fish and a couple of pills of Ratox (rat poison). His idea was to kill the cat. When I got home, we crushed up the pills into a powder, cut up the fish into small pieces, and then injected the powder into the pieces of fish. That evening, we walked around my quintal and placed pieces of fish in various places in hope that the cat would find them and eat them. It was a solid plan.
Word gets around fast in a tight-knit community, and news of our mini-war against the local feline population spread like wildfire. Sure enough, the cat (cats?) were smarter than us and the next day, every hours or so, a new kid would show up with a huge smile on his face dragging a dead crow behind him. “Nice work!” he’d say, “can I make frango?” Frango is grilled chicken, and no, you cannot make frango out of a giant poisoned crow. We ended up burying about 5 crows in a mass grave that day.
Well, the cat’s got the best of me anyway and the rest of the chicks died anyway. Two made it for a little while, but a few weeks later one caught some disease and collapsed from exhaustion and the other disappeared about a week later. I can only assume the worst.
I’m expecting a round three though, and you know what they say: Third time's the charm.
UPDATE: Everyone's dead. After the last chick died, the hen decided to go too. That marks 34 chicks, two roosters and a hen that I've lost this year. I'm starting to think that maybe I'm not such a good chicken farmer.
