Dear Ferret Folks- We had an *event* the other night, here at home. It was a hot night, and my husband and I were sleeping thin sleeps beneath the rotary ceiling fan. It was the type of night that makes sleep a burden. You wake up bleary eyed the next morning, and shuffle over to the nearest coffee pot in a daze. It was that kind of hot. Around three in the morning I heard a sound, a terrible sound. It was Tina, my Barred-Rock hen yelling from her coop "HELP!! I'M BEING MURDERED!" Ogod ogod ogod. I was up and out of bed instantly, running for the back door. Tina! My beloved Barred-Rock Hen! I knew that her companion the much younger Buff Orpington hen could not possibly make a noise that loud. It was Tina, and she was in trouble. I fumbled for a flashlight. My husband was only a step behind me, and he was cursing. "Ping! *amn you Ping!" Ping? He was in his cage. I *knew* he was in his cage with Puma. Wasn't he? Could he possibly have teleported out of his cage to menace the chickens *again*? I ran back to the ferret's room to check, and my husband, wearing nothing but his birthday suit, a pair of black canvas flats, and a long blond pony tail ran (I have to say it) BUCK naked out into the night with the flashlight, the dog, the Noble Allis Chompers at his side. I did a quick check and yelled "It's not Ping!" My husband then bellowed into the night "GET 'EM, CHOMPS!" And Allis Chompers flew to the coop, flew like a night bird across the yard and from there to the edge of the yard and beyond, into the dark tangle of swamp behind the coop. I could hear snapping and thrashing as she shouldered her way through the high bush blueberry. She wasn't just entertaining herself, either. She was in hot pursuit of *something*. Something that was running for its life. Now if I had been, say, a fox or a raccoon or a possum (yes, dumb as they are they will take chickens if they can) and I had seen the enraged, cursing, naked, son of a professional truck driver running at me starkers through the moon-lit night with a club of a flashlight clenched in his fist, *I* would have dropped the hen and run. But I suspect it was the sight of the snarling dog that actually did the trick. In any event, the thief dropped the hen and ran for its life. Chompers was gone for a long time, a long time. My husband found Tina behind the coop, stunned on the ground and missing numerous feathers. I picked her up and brought her inside and did what I could for her, which wasn't much beyond checking her out and stroking her soothingly until she was willing to stand on her own two feet again. The thief had sunk teeth into her left ankle, deeply. He had ingressed through a small corner of the chicken wire that I used to pin back with a nail. That was the flap that let me into the coop. Was it pinned back tightly enough? Obviously not .He had pulled Tina completely out into the night through the loose corner. It couldn't have been an easy trick, but he was obviously motivated. Needless to say, the flap has been adjusted, and we are not going to have a repeat of that. Tina is up and around, although favoring one foot. The morning light revealed what I believe is a tuft of raccoon fur caught in the wire. Ping was sort of watchful in the morning. He had been awakened in the night with that hoomin bellow of "Ping! *amn you Ping!" and that couldn't have been pleasant. When I did my hurried head count the night before he had looked up at me from his hammie with an expression of "Huh? Wuh?", his head fur mashed to one side from having Puma sleep against him. Puma had given me an evil look that had been a silent hiss of displeasure. For once in his life, maybe the only time, Ping was innocent. Totally innocent. I hope he's savoring it. It doesn't happen every day around here. Alexandra in MA [Posted in FML 6038]