... and then there were 3

About a week ago and the morning after their second night outside, one of our girls disappeared. There was no evidence whatsoever of what happened to our chicken. At first we assumed it was taken by a spiteful neighbor and we set up our computer's webcam to take surveillance of the coop while we were away from our house. But then it was mentioned that a snake could have gotten it. Even though we weren't sure how a snake that had just eaten a chicken could get out of the coop, we decided that was probably what happened. So we were down to 4. I was sad, but Bryan reminded me that all of our calculations were based on 4 chickens and that it would be alright.
Two days ago we lowered the chicken ladder to the coop, filled the coop with pine shavings, and decided it was time that the girls learned how to climb the ladder to the top of the coop/nesting area. We thought for sure that they were big enough that they couldn't fit through the lattice we put on the coop to keep it cooler during the summer months. The first night the girls stayed in the run area. Last night right at dusk, as I was watering the garden, all four of our girls walked up the ladder and huddled together in the coop. I was so proud. Seth and I wished them goodnight and headed inside.
This morning at 6 am I peeked outside and didn't see the girls. I assumed they were still up in the coop and carried on about my business. At 7 am, right as Bryan was heading off to work, we looked outside and we could see two of the chickens in our yard, but not in their coop. Bryan rode his bike around the neighborhood looking for the other two before going on to work. I was left with the lucky job of wrangling up the two in the backyard. They were constantly going in and out of the chain link fence and I am sure I looked like a crazy person chasing these two chickens. With two in the coop, Seth spotted another one coming from the side of our yard. This girl was sneaky. She managed to find her way under a bush and kept moving just out of reach. Finally I caught her, and we continued our search for the last girl. We searched for almost thirty minutes with no luck. All day I have been peeking outside just hoping that our chicken might find her way back to our yard. But she hasn't yet, and I am doubtful now that we will ever see her again. There are too many cats in this neighborhood. We're adding chicken wire to the lattice before we let the girls into the coop again. Hopefully, no other mishaps will happen, because we aren't off to a very good start with this whole chicken raising thing.