A Most Unfortunate Circumstance.

My father, Wally, raised chickens both for meat and eggs. Every spring he bought baby chicks to ensure that we had a steady supply of eggs for the following winter. He always housed them in a pen near the house. The pen was secured top, bottom and sides with small mesh chicken wire. Inside, he placed a chick house and a small heater within to keep the fluff balls warm during the chilly spring nights. They also had a food trough and a watering device to use at their leisure.
One morning, to Wally’s horror, he discovered the pen had been broken into and most of the chicks were killed. What animal would create such wanton destruction?
The pen of course was a mess with everything upside down. Wally removed the few remaining live chicks but left the carcasses of the dead where they fell.
That evening, hoping that the killer would return, Wally set a trap for the creature.
Sure enough, the culprit returned to the crime scene and fell victim to the trap. Wally had caught a cat. It made sense now, that the animal on a hunt and drawn by the wild smell of bird, would secret itself through a weakness in the cage. Once the cat started killing, the blood letting and excitement overcame it until most of the chicks were dead. Wally dealt with the feline. Then, It was off to the Co-Op  store where he bought more chicks and set them in a cleaned and secure pen.

All mornings thereafter allowed those cute fluff balls to grow up into wonderful egg laying hens.