Thunder The Fox Destroyer!

by Helen
(UK)

About six Years ago,I won a egg incubator in a raffle.My husband and I and the kids had a trio of leghorns,which would roam about the garden,the cockeral was great he would strut his stuff with the ladies daily,but his two girls never hatched any eggs,so I decided to give them a go in the incubator.
I selected three eggs and set them and followed the instructions to the letter.Sadly whilst waiting for the eggs to hatch a fox attacked during daylight hours,during a thunder storm and killed our lovely trio,devasting us all.
Just over a month after setting them,I was woken in the middle of the night,by the sound of tiny cheeping,and a sneaky look reaveled that all three eggs were pipping,back to bed but I could not sleep,I now knew how my husband felt waiting for me to give birth!
By Morning all three had hatched and had fluffed up,it was touch and go for a while as on day two a massive summer storm put our electricity out for sixteen hours! And I was terrified our little chicks would get cold,all survived and turned out to all be hens.
So history did not repeat itself,we built a large run so our new girls had the best of both worlds,safety and freedom.Did we name them? Of course Thunder,Storm, and Flash were there new names,and we fell in love with them.
Two Summers and hundreds of eggs later,disaster was to strike again.Again a large storm struck and the winds got up,and blew the coop door open,the birds always up for adventure headed out to dig up the veggie patch.
I arrived home about 5.30 pm to a right commotion in the back garden,as I opened the back gate,Thunder doing her very best road runner impression charged past me,followed by a large male fox,who could not have cared less for my presence,charged after her towards the main road and rush hour traffic.
I heard the squeels of cars braking and closed my eyes dreading what I would turn and see.I turned and saw Thunder flapping towards me,she darted straight back through the gate and back to her sisters.Shutting the gate I headed to the road,sadly the fox had been killed by a van,driven by a off duty policeman,who placed him in the back of the van,no damage caused to people or vechiles or Thunder thankfully.
Back home the girls seemed ok,no injuries,Thunder was quiet for a few days,Storm and Flash seemed to upset and rarely left her side.
This summer coming all three girls will be six years old,all going strong all still laying a good number of eggs.Touch wood we have never seen another fox in our garden,perhaps they are too scared to come face to face with "Thunder,the fox destroyer"