GreyhoundGuy
Chirping
I came home from work last Thursday at 5:30pm and gave the hens their treats. All five came running up and said hi, chattering all the way. A bit later around 6:30pm, I went out to close them up for the night, but only three hens came up.
I searched the yard for the missing girls and found what I can only describe as an explosion of feathers. I texted a picture of the feathers to my wife, and she said it looked to be a hawk attack. We have seen a Cooper's Hawk flying in our area checking things out before (at which point we put our girls in the coop/run for a week or so until the hawk lost interest), but it's been ages since then.
I only found feathers of one hen. The other (different color variation) didn't leave any feathers. My fear is that she somehow jumped the fence or skittered through the fence during the commotion and simply wandered off.
We knew that when we decided to free range our chickens, this could be a possibility, but it still stinks now that it's happened.
So we're now in the process of revamping our coop and run.
Sigh.
-Joel
I searched the yard for the missing girls and found what I can only describe as an explosion of feathers. I texted a picture of the feathers to my wife, and she said it looked to be a hawk attack. We have seen a Cooper's Hawk flying in our area checking things out before (at which point we put our girls in the coop/run for a week or so until the hawk lost interest), but it's been ages since then.
I only found feathers of one hen. The other (different color variation) didn't leave any feathers. My fear is that she somehow jumped the fence or skittered through the fence during the commotion and simply wandered off.
We knew that when we decided to free range our chickens, this could be a possibility, but it still stinks now that it's happened.
So we're now in the process of revamping our coop and run.
Sigh.
-Joel
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