Turner_Family_Flock
Chirping
- May 16, 2020
- 39
- 88
- 67
So I love our hens.
Our 4 lovely red-feathered novogen browns and our 1 sweet little black australorp who's feathers look blue when the light hits them just right.
I love them
They're sweet, they're friendly, they like to play, and they all have distinct personalities.
One of my hen's personalities just happens to be.....loud.
So chicken clucks are normal. Cluck-cluck-cluck is music to my ears.
But Cluck Noris likes to sing.
And by sing, I mean scream.
She's effectively terrified the cats that come into our yard at night with her screaming.
The cats never come for the chicken coop, though- the hens have never had problems with furry intruders (No, the cats try to break into the house. Just last night my parents woke up to a gut-wrenching screech from a cat outside their door to the patio and the pitbull made short work of tossing that door open and chasing it out of the yard. The cats don't want the chickens, they're coming for us)
But, yeah, Cluck Noris- for being one of our hens- is basically our little rooster.
In fact, we thought she *was* a rooster for the longest time, because she was so noisy.
But she never developed the characteristics of a rooster. No long tail feathers, no caw-cadoodle-dooing, nothing of that sort.
But she is 100 percent of the time, the coop's protector. The other hens all sleep up at the top of the coop, but Nori chooses to stay on a lower roost so she can keep an eye on the run, and she'll bawk at me when I wake her up by shutting the door to her run. But she doesn't yell at me- when Nori 'talks' to me at night it's usually a soft 'ba-ba-baw-baw-baww' noise until I walk away. It's her cutest noise.
But between the hours of 7 am and roughly....3 pm...she doesn't shut up.
Usually if her coop isn't opened by my parents, she's learned that- because my room is the closest to the backyard- that I'm the one that can hear her yell. So at 7 am she'll bawk as loud as she can to get me to wake up and come open the door to the run, and I usually toss them a handful or two of scratch.
I'd love to be able to just let them run around in the morning, but winter mornings in Oregon are.........soggy.
I'm from North Dakota, okay? I have no issue sitting outside when it's 42 degrees because that's *warm* at this time of year for me. I can sit outside with the hens and drink a ginger beer and watch my lovely little ladies run around digging up worms and stuff, because it lets them excercise and it lets them forage for bugs and worms (which rainy winters have a LOT of!) and it keeps them *quiet* above all else.
But I can't let them be outside by themselves.
First of all, no- the cats don't bother us during the day. They sit in the tree in the *front* yard to torment my dog. They don't bug the hens during the day. And even then? The hens scare the cats away. Especially Nori.
Nori taught my PITBULL to behave kindly around chickens by pecking her on the nose when she got too close to the run and head-butting her a few times to scare her into being nice.
I know a lot of chicken owners keep their dogs and hens separated because the dog can snap at any time- but the chickens put her in her place. My 90 pound pitbull is afraid of two things. Weiner dogs and chickens.
But my point is that I WOULD let my hens graze all winter long if I could. They fertilize the garden beds and half the time all they want to do is lay in the planter bed that we used for corn because they dug out the back side to make the perfect spot to bury themselves in the cool, damp dirt.
But our one and only issue.
Is a hawk.
Not hawks in general, either, one hawk. One hawk who I've stared into the eyes of and one hawk who's been a threat since my babies were little more than chicken nuggets.
And this one hawk. Lives in a dead tree about a block from us.
And he's been stalking my hens for nearly a year.
Since the very first day we let our baby hens graze in the grass, when they were little taller than the blades of grass they pecked at, the hawk has flown over the house. Every day I let my hens graze in the mud and grass, the hawk flies over us. And the hawk only flies away when I gather my girls in one spot and stare up at him- and he realizes he can't take on an angry human and he flies back to the tree until I let my girls out of my arms.
So, long story short, there's a hawk that threatens to turn my girls into a 5 piece chicken mcnugget meal if we aren't paying attention.
And because it's winter and my dad lost his North Dakota winter skin, he no longer sits outside on the patio. In fact, the patio is little more than storage at this point.
So when I want my hens to have some time to graze, I have to be out there. Because when I'm not I fear that the circling hawk will swoop down and snatch up one of my beloved hens.
But I also need my hens to feel safe and have FUN during the winter. Mostly to keep them quiet for the sake of the neighbors, but also so that I know they're HAPPY.
And I've told you about this hawk because most of the time people suggest having me just leave my hens unsupervised during the day, but that's not a good choice for me.
Is my hen just noisy? Is that something I can help her with? Is she bored? Is there any way I can make my yard safer to leave the hens out? Is a hawk really even a threat I should worry about?
Our 4 lovely red-feathered novogen browns and our 1 sweet little black australorp who's feathers look blue when the light hits them just right.
I love them
They're sweet, they're friendly, they like to play, and they all have distinct personalities.
One of my hen's personalities just happens to be.....loud.
So chicken clucks are normal. Cluck-cluck-cluck is music to my ears.
But Cluck Noris likes to sing.
And by sing, I mean scream.
She's effectively terrified the cats that come into our yard at night with her screaming.
The cats never come for the chicken coop, though- the hens have never had problems with furry intruders (No, the cats try to break into the house. Just last night my parents woke up to a gut-wrenching screech from a cat outside their door to the patio and the pitbull made short work of tossing that door open and chasing it out of the yard. The cats don't want the chickens, they're coming for us)
But, yeah, Cluck Noris- for being one of our hens- is basically our little rooster.
In fact, we thought she *was* a rooster for the longest time, because she was so noisy.
But she never developed the characteristics of a rooster. No long tail feathers, no caw-cadoodle-dooing, nothing of that sort.
But she is 100 percent of the time, the coop's protector. The other hens all sleep up at the top of the coop, but Nori chooses to stay on a lower roost so she can keep an eye on the run, and she'll bawk at me when I wake her up by shutting the door to her run. But she doesn't yell at me- when Nori 'talks' to me at night it's usually a soft 'ba-ba-baw-baw-baww' noise until I walk away. It's her cutest noise.
But between the hours of 7 am and roughly....3 pm...she doesn't shut up.
Usually if her coop isn't opened by my parents, she's learned that- because my room is the closest to the backyard- that I'm the one that can hear her yell. So at 7 am she'll bawk as loud as she can to get me to wake up and come open the door to the run, and I usually toss them a handful or two of scratch.
I'd love to be able to just let them run around in the morning, but winter mornings in Oregon are.........soggy.
I'm from North Dakota, okay? I have no issue sitting outside when it's 42 degrees because that's *warm* at this time of year for me. I can sit outside with the hens and drink a ginger beer and watch my lovely little ladies run around digging up worms and stuff, because it lets them excercise and it lets them forage for bugs and worms (which rainy winters have a LOT of!) and it keeps them *quiet* above all else.
But I can't let them be outside by themselves.
First of all, no- the cats don't bother us during the day. They sit in the tree in the *front* yard to torment my dog. They don't bug the hens during the day. And even then? The hens scare the cats away. Especially Nori.
Nori taught my PITBULL to behave kindly around chickens by pecking her on the nose when she got too close to the run and head-butting her a few times to scare her into being nice.
I know a lot of chicken owners keep their dogs and hens separated because the dog can snap at any time- but the chickens put her in her place. My 90 pound pitbull is afraid of two things. Weiner dogs and chickens.
But my point is that I WOULD let my hens graze all winter long if I could. They fertilize the garden beds and half the time all they want to do is lay in the planter bed that we used for corn because they dug out the back side to make the perfect spot to bury themselves in the cool, damp dirt.
But our one and only issue.
Is a hawk.
Not hawks in general, either, one hawk. One hawk who I've stared into the eyes of and one hawk who's been a threat since my babies were little more than chicken nuggets.
And this one hawk. Lives in a dead tree about a block from us.
And he's been stalking my hens for nearly a year.
Since the very first day we let our baby hens graze in the grass, when they were little taller than the blades of grass they pecked at, the hawk has flown over the house. Every day I let my hens graze in the mud and grass, the hawk flies over us. And the hawk only flies away when I gather my girls in one spot and stare up at him- and he realizes he can't take on an angry human and he flies back to the tree until I let my girls out of my arms.
So, long story short, there's a hawk that threatens to turn my girls into a 5 piece chicken mcnugget meal if we aren't paying attention.
And because it's winter and my dad lost his North Dakota winter skin, he no longer sits outside on the patio. In fact, the patio is little more than storage at this point.
So when I want my hens to have some time to graze, I have to be out there. Because when I'm not I fear that the circling hawk will swoop down and snatch up one of my beloved hens.
But I also need my hens to feel safe and have FUN during the winter. Mostly to keep them quiet for the sake of the neighbors, but also so that I know they're HAPPY.
And I've told you about this hawk because most of the time people suggest having me just leave my hens unsupervised during the day, but that's not a good choice for me.
Is my hen just noisy? Is that something I can help her with? Is she bored? Is there any way I can make my yard safer to leave the hens out? Is a hawk really even a threat I should worry about?
) that the chickens have it figured out. I've got two black australorps - super smart, and two delightfully ditzy silkies. ADD TO IT that the house behind us (I live in what would generally be called a suburb) has a freakin 30 year old Amazon parrot that screeches and boooooocs here and there. I think my hens know if they are noisy, we'll come and check. And I think my hubby, and ok, me, too, made a critical mistake with bringing greens/weeds for them to nibble on. Now, over the last week, their voices have grown strong, and I think they are pushing it. "Ok gals, if we're super loud, the mom and dad units will come running... one, two, three and RAWRRRRRcluckcluckcluck..."
