Last week (on the day that our only car for our family of 5 was the farm truck), we lost 2 laying chickens. We'd been gone most of the day, taking vehicles to be worked on. After dinner, the kids ran out into the backyard to play a few minutes before we had to load up the wagon and head out for our evening activities. They ran right back into the house, declaring, "I think some chickens are dead."

I'm sparing you a photo of the chickens themselves as we found them in the chicken yard. But, how the kids thought they just might be dead is beyond me. Usually when an animal's intestines are outside its body, that's a good clue it's met its earthly end. Whatever it was claimed the lives of two chickens and literally scared the eggs out of the rest of them (really, there were eggs just dropped all over the floor of the house instead of the laying boxes).

John immediately set to work fixing the damage to the house that had been done by the intruder. Apparently, the culprit had entered by pulling the chicken wire back from the door.

The two we lost look like this one. They are such pretty birds!

The chickens were understandably skiddish following their traumatic day.

This is new to us. We've not had wild intruders doing damage to our farm before. Who's to blame? And how can we better protect our gals in the future?

Check back tomorrow to see how far we've gotten in solving the Mystery of the Murder in the Chicken Coop.