About now my husband and I are rethinking our put-the-chickens-in-the-corn-surrounded-by-the-electric-fence-strategy. It seemed like the perfect solution. A creek  passes  through our property which we love for all kinds of reasons. However, it is also the raccoon population’s highway. The raccoons can decimate a corn crop in one night. Each year it’s a race to see who will claim the corn first: us or the raccoons. Those animals have some sort of internal senser, maybe a heightened sense of smell, because they only come when it’s ripe. We’ve tried putting a radio on an all night talk show station which works for about two or three days. Then we tie the dog down there with the radio and that keeps them out. Our dog hates being chained up in the garden for the night. This year because the corn was safe–or so we thought–we tied him up near the pole beans the deer were eating. Two jalepeno plants and a crookneck later, we’re not doing that anymore.

Anyway, the chickens needed the electric fence for protection against critters like the raccoons and so did our corn. Chickens like earwigs and other pesky bugs and worms that also like our corn. It seemed the perfect match until…well you’ve seen the picture. The thing is the chickens have all the time in the world to peck and peck until the cob is exposed or falls off the stalk. Maybe they should check out this blog post and rethink their actions because we’re weighing our options here. Fresh eggs or Sunday dinners in our freezer…now that’s something those chickens oughta be considering.