Anyone who keeps chickens in NH knows that they get eaten. Despite our best efforts to keep them safe, foxes, voles, or birds of prey (death from above), will eventually eat your chickens. But why do the mean ones never get eaten? This winter I am left with one chicken, Red, who literally "pecks the hand that feeds her." To simplify things I moved her coop into the high tunnel temporarily to keep her warmer and try to keep the water from freezing. It works pretty well and I rotate her coop around so she is helping to rototill the new earth. She is still mean, but laying an egg a day so she is earning her keep, sort of.
