Chicken in the night

My husband and I were woken up at three this morning by what sounded like a cat close to the house. We don't have a cat. We got up and turned on the outside lights but could not see anything. This morning we found a trail of feathers leading from the back of the house, past the side yard and to the front field gate. Something got a chicken this morning. John followed the trail of feathers to the back and found a nest with fourteen brown eggs. Apparently she has not been coming into the chicken coop at night and had set up her own little nest.

The chickens are free range and I don't have any idea how many I have now. I count the guineas because I am down to five. And I have three roosters. But the chickens are mostly on their own. They have to make it back into the coop at night and then I shut the door. Last evening, two of the chickens were outside the west coop door which is closed due to the sheep. I had to pick them up and set them into the coop. They had already started to roost on the ground.
I have cooked the fourteen eggs for the chickens. They need the protein. I have to cook the eggs because I don't want to encourage them to eat raw eggs.

I will need to get new chicks this spring. I have some chickens that are two years old and  the rest are just over a year. I will need to replace and add to the flock to keep the egg production. The older chickens will slow down egg laying and will eventually go into the soup pot.

I think it is interesting that so much of the farming is about food production. I know that sounds apparent and I guess we could just set on the porch or take long walks. But my day is about keeping animals healthy and alive until we can kill them.