Today I was getting rid of things in my room and heard squaking outside so I looked out my bathroom window and saw one of my new hampshire's trying to force her way through the hardware cloth/wire. At first I thought it was because she was being left out or something because they seem to freak out when they are not all together. But I started looking around the chicken and my mom and I had a brought down four lawn chairs a few days ago. On one of those lawn chairs was a hawk! At first glance I thought it was just one of my dark brahmas perching on the top of a new chair and standing up really tall but I quickly noticed the difference and ran out side. It flew away very quickly when I got out there, my coop is only about 30-45 feet away from our front door. I got the new hampshire hen (Who is fine besides being very startled) and put her in the coop, she ran into a corner and wouldn't budge for awhile and the 3 australorp chicks were already in the coop. But my 10 other hens were nowhere to be found! So I got my brother and my dad to search all around in the forest and creek and after two hours we found every one of them in the garage. I feel so lucky that no one was hurt but I'm very confused. They are now locked int their coop and run (Which although they all have over 10 ft each in there seems so small compared to free ranging!) and will be while I'm out of town and my brother takes care of them. What confused me was that after googling and finding many posts on this site it seems that mostly hawks swoop down on their prey? This hawk was just perching on a chair watching the frantic chicken with a very relaxed posture. Was he sizing the chicken up? I have no idea but this is so frightening! Even though the land we live on seems like the perfect place for hawks I have never seen one so close to the house before! Usually I see them flying from afar.
I would really appreciate your help, the run already has a roof but I really want to continue free ranging my chickens. I have heard of stringing fishing string, would this work large scale? As in stringing it randomly in the places the chickens hangout alot? Also what kind of things work best for cover? Cover with two ways out such as a table or more cave like like a dog house? Would a hawk be able to corner a chicken in a small dog house?
Thanks!
Sofia
I would really appreciate your help, the run already has a roof but I really want to continue free ranging my chickens. I have heard of stringing fishing string, would this work large scale? As in stringing it randomly in the places the chickens hangout alot? Also what kind of things work best for cover? Cover with two ways out such as a table or more cave like like a dog house? Would a hawk be able to corner a chicken in a small dog house?
Thanks!
Sofia