As a child of the fifties, enjoying such literary delights as Graham’s Wind in the Willows, Mole, Ratty and Badger have always been high on my list of loved and respected animals.
Last night was heard across the length and breadth of merry England a blood curdling cry from our newly resident hen.
Leaping about the garden in our underpants at one in the morning; a fine moon and frost under our feet; my son and I, having been stirred by the ever hearing wife and mother, ran to the rescue, tripping on the unhelpful dog on the way out. The hen house was all shut up and yet Grizzle (because she growls like a bear not a hen) continued to cry: and no wonder; on opening the side of the hen house we found her. She had lost all her tail feathers and was stuck in between the broken “duck” boards.
“Daddy, Daddy, the fox is sill in there” screamed my distraught son. “It has dug a hole underneath”!
Stuck under the laying box was the back end of not a fox but a badger. Now I believe that Badgers can be quite defensive with their teeth, so I removed my hand quickly from rescuing the now frantic birds.
Freeing the Badger, saving the hen and her two traumatised chicks, we eventually went back to bed, vowing to remember to keep the torch batteries charged in future as these things are difficult in the dark.
But it is to poor Echo the Cockerel to whom I pay tribute. He had clearly fought the Badger well and lost his head for so doing.
Grizzel’s broken leg I think will mend. She had a hearty breakfast this morning and is now busy bossing her chicks about again.