Readers may remember an earlier story about my rebel hen who refused to lay her eggs in the henhouse preferring to lay them in a secret hiding place in the garden outside our front door.

The loss of our rebel hen saddened us all. File photo Wayne Martin.

At that time all ended well with the result being five great looking hens and three spectacular roosters. Then, four or five weeks ago she was back to her old tricks and again established a nest, this time in a hedge about 100 metres from the henhouse.

It took several days to locate her and I sat for hours tracking her movements with my binoculars.

When her new nest was found I again replaced the eggs with fertile eggs from John at Drury Pet Centre and then waited for the big day.

But alas, from here it was all doom and gloom. Each night as I was feeding the other hens our little rebel would rush down for a quick feed and a drink before scurrying back to her ‘secret’ nest.

She would only leave the nest in fine weather so as to protect the eggs and on this particular night it has been two days since her last feed. She arrived just as I was due to shut the gate, so I left it open so she could return to her hideaway after eating.

It was my intention to go down a little later to shut the gate but, much to my regret, I forgot.

The next morning, to my horror, I found her dead in the run, feathers strewn all over the place.

I then realised two of her original chickens, now nearly fully grown, were also missing.

One, I found with a broken neck in the long grass some distance from the pen. I couldn’t find the other.

My initial reaction was that a stoat was the culprit so I immediately called our friends at Coastal Pest Solutions. Ditch Keeling sent out a trap which we put in place near the coop but after three days there was no sign of a stoat coming back for more.

It was then that our gardener discovered feathers sticking out of a flower bed which revealed our missing hen buried there.

I realised then that a dog must have been responsible for the attack, which, of course, also robbed us of new chickens.

Our little hen’s eggs went cold over the night she was missing and we could not save them.

The lesson for me has been to never leave my chooks unprotected by not shutting the gate in the evening.

To make matters worse, we are not getting any eggs at the moment, but there’s some consolation – neither are our neighbours!

See you next month.

• Brian Neben publishes Rural Living, and during the weekends is an avid lifestyle farmer.