More 'chook' woes.

So...we have not been very lucky in the 'chook' department recently, with the fox attacks last year, the mite infestation and the failure of the guinea fowl and Polish White Crested eggs in hatching.The 'Pen of Doom' (so named after the quoll attack) that I built has been, once more, home to our flock but vastly fortified against intruders.The whole point of it was that they could be free range and come and go as they please rather than be cooped up in, a generous sized but denuded pen.A big part of the new safety regime means that the birds are shut up at night and have to be let out in the morning by Will or I.They are visibly happier roaming free about the place and have acres to scratch in though they often try to get into the fenced off garden and have to be chased out.Of our original flock we only have Yudhisthira, Arke, Pacha, and my favourite Iris. We bought Yudhisthira, Arke and Iris together, after getting our first three Odin, Hecate and Isis. We gave Odin away as he was bullied by Yudhisthira but also chased Ros and Phoebe when they were here. The people we gave gim too eventually gave himhaway again as he started chasing them. Isis fell ill and died shortly after we got her and Hecate died just last year. After raising 11 chicks in October she was dragged off by a fox and we found her injured a short distance away. She lived for a few weeks after that attack but was probably the first one to succumb to the mites.Of her 11 chicks 7 survived, the others disappearing shortly before we caught the swamp harrier in the pen.More than half of the seven surviving chicks have turned out to be roosters but we think there may be three hens. It is still early days. We have only named one of these 'chicks' so far...the one we are sure is a hen....Sheng-Mu. She is a granddaughter of the Mu sisters, fathered by Wang-Mu, son of Mu. He is our only surviving second generation bird.Sheng-Mu is the only one of our 12 who can negotiate the ramp out of the pen in the morning but not the ramp back in at night. As I go to shut them in after dark she is always roosting on the coop roof, thankfully, always within reaching distance and I have to grab her and throw her in where she will be safe."I'm off to chuck the chicken," I now say every night as I head out into the dark.When we went to Melbourne we considered keeping them locked up for the duration of our trip but in the end decided to leave their fate to Fate and for three nights the pen was left open and Sheng-Mu spent three nights on the roof alone.This weekend our friend Maree happened to be staying with her little dog Lolly while we went away. I showed her the morning and evening routines, re shutting and opening the pen and told her not to worry about Sheng-Mu on the roof as Maree could not reach her anyway. Maree was worried about being left in charge of the 'chooks'."If the worst should happen do you want me to text you!" She asked."Nothing will happen," I said. " Everything will be fine."I should have touched wood....We got a text from Maree yesterday saying she wasn't sure how many we had had but she thought she could only count 10. Today on our way home she texted again to say there were definitely only 9 and she had found feathers behind the pen and found one dead bird up the hill. Sometime yesterday, in the early evening, before they went in to roost, we suspect a fox attacked them.For most of the journey home we were speculating on who we could have lost and we were hoping it was three of the un-named roosters, who are for the pot anyway. We arrived home after dark and assured Maree it was not her fault and that it would have happened anyway if she had not been there.It was hard to tell in the dark, even with a torch, who was still exactly in the coop. Sheng-Mu was up on the roof so I chucked her in. Yudhisthira was there, as were Pacha and Wang-Mu but it was hard to tell if Arke or Iris were there, though I was certain at least one of them was missing.I went with torch in hand up the hill to search and eventually found the dead bird. I carried her back down to the shed. It is our worst fear. We think it is Iris. I am hoping daylight will prove us wrong and that it is Arke rather than Iris, which will still be terrible but not as terrible as losing lovely, cheeky, greedy, brave Iris. It is possible that we have lost them both and if so...they were the only ones laying.Oh, woe! When will this run of bad 'chook' luck end?