I'm not a very good country girl sometimes

A week ago Saturday we got some ducks and guinea keets (babies). The ducks have been hanging out in their little area inside the dog yard and the keets are still in a brooder in the basement. This am, I checked on the ducks and there were only 3 - and traces of the 4th in the grass. So, one duck down due to a predator. Since they're inside a fenced area which is inside a chainlink fence, I'm guessing it was a racoon. I feel worse for the poor ducklings that watched their friend be killed than for the actual loss of a duck. They must be traumatized. And why didn't our dogs hear something and wake me up?? Not that I could have helped.

So that was a suck-ass way to start a Monday morning. Then, as I was getting ready to leave, I heard screaming. Horrible screaming. A big dog was in the woods, not far from our front door, killing a baby deer, the mother kept running out of the woods, then back in and the dog would cry and then bark viciously and the mother would run back out. Two full grown deer couldn't stop it from happening. For some reason, once I saw the dog and realized it was just a dog and not a coyote or fox, I couldn't let Husband shoot it. Yet, I cried all the way to work and cursed the stupid dog, wishing the deer had been able to kill it. Ugh.

Its just life, its what happens when you have animals and there are predators. But I don't like it at all. I hadn't envisioned this part of country living when we looked at our house, surrounded on all sides by woods, with a big open 3 1/2 acre yard. I pictured bliss, not senseless death on a Monday morning.

Tonight, we'll build them some kind of house to lock them up in at night to try and prevent this from happening again.

I really don't mean to be a drag, but this is what I woke up to this morning. Hopefully the week will improve.