The mystery of our neighbor’s wrangled chickens has been solved! This little ring-tailed bandit won’t be saying “Winner winner, chicken dinner” anytime soon.

Yep, our nice neighbors who let Avery pet their chickens on our daily walk, and would give some of their eggs to us for months caught animal responsible for killing all but one of their chickens. A raccoon, of course, it even has bandit as a nickname!

They set a trap before, but the sly guy would reach his paws into the cage and grab the food without going inside. Then our neighbors outsmarted the night raider and rigged the trap to finally catch him. As you’d expect, celebration soon followed.

That’s Avery in the middle with our neighbor’s two year old boy, Bexar (pronounced Bear) and five year old gymnast, Taylor. She was the only one up for facing the camera, Avery and Bexar were having too much fun playing….or celebrating.

They also have an older boy, Brazos, but he’s suffering through the last few days of school before summer starts. Taylor is the girl who usually caught a chicken for Avery to pet and is always happy to show her cools things she has.

Being the kind folks that they are, they released the crazy bandit back into the wild, just away from their home. Hope it learned its lesson to stay away! With only one chicken left, they plan to restock their fowl soon.

I gave them a little money to pay for one just so Avery could name one of them. So far, when we ask what name she wants to give a chicken, she says “Yellow”. I keep asking at different times, but she keeps the same answer. Guess our neighbors will have a chicken named “Yellow” soon…..even if it’s black.

As for the other crime in the neighborhood, we have a break in the case. They haven’t been caught (yet), but were captured on video as they attempted to use a stolen credit card at a 7-11. Here is the report and some pics, maybe you’ll see them and can help trap them just like the raccoon.

Hopefully, with the raccoon trapped, the criminals exposing themselves, and an awesome neighborhood on high alert, our little crimewave will vanish. Once the replacement chickens arrive, I’ll be sure to share a pic of “Yellow” and the others soon after.

That’s it for now. Avery and I are going to go patrol the neighborhood to maintain order in the community!