This is not good

, a photo by jahansell on Flickr.

This morning, Duchess, our year-old kitty, spent about a half-hour stretched out on top of the brooder, watching the chicks. Occasionally she'd dip her paw down and poke at them, but we've just had her declawed so she was limited in her ability to snag one. Even so, I put a few extra logs on top of the screen for the day, to hold it down. I didn't want to come home from work to find six chicken corpses arrayed around the living room and a fat smug kitty snoozing nearby.