Ha! I am a champ at pacing myself so there is no need to worry about that.
As for Bob Backwards (the rooster) I found him dead in his pen with his neck wrung. Unless he had some kind of freak accident... something got to him in broad daylight somehow... while the dogs were near enough that any critter with any sense would not approach his pen because they were on two sides of it... plus with Emily (the hen) and Bob (the other rooster) roaming around... and being much easier targets... so I dunno what happened to him exactly.
Before I buried him I checked his neck and it felt like he had two damaged (and dislodged) vertebrate and that his head had been wrenched completely around in a clockwise motion as if by sudden force being applied to it. Even his body had the feeling to it that he had gone from being alive to dead very quickly.
Truly it is a mystery as to what exactly happened... and if I had not heard so many loud and angry arguments around here I would write 'human involvement' out of the equation altogether. Just that I cannot exclude human activity tells me all I really need to know about the area that I am in.
For now though... I am going with 'freak accident' but I buried him shallow enough that I can examine the bones of his neck more closely... once the ants and bugs finish their job.
It either had to be a snake or maybe he got his head caught in the wire and flopped around until it broke his neck and then fell out of the wire. I do not believe a person did it, your dogs would have alerted you of them, and if any other animal would have done it, the dogs would have done the same. It is just sad that you will never know for sure what happened.
I had a guest at the time and there was a long period of time that we were off site. As a side note the comings and goings of folks around here is pretty hard to miss considering that we are all right on top of each other along a dead end road.
I am sticking to it all being an unknown given that I do not have any real evidence (aside from the broken neck) to paint a clearer picture. There are plenty of factors to it all that make me suspicious but I am by far not drawing any conclusions.
If all goes well over the coming weeks I will be blowing this popsicle stand with the bulk of my goals achieved for what I wanted to do with the place in regards to it being a farm.
One of the reasons that I have not been building stuff here is that I do not want to create a bunch of maintenance for myself in the future. So like that new berm being just made of 'earth' instead of a bridge will help spare me from having to maintain a bridge forever. In other words the lighter my touch on the place is now... the less hassle that I will have later on.
Early on I switched gears from making a home and farm here... to just making a farm. The local environment with all the loud angry voices, the constant traffic, the no privacy... plus a gazillion gunshots and explosions every week... simply is not the kind of place that I (nor the dogs) could ever 'be at home' in. It is just too stressful.
I am sorry this place is not working out to be the home you need.