Hi guys,
Today has been an interesting day. I found out what has been happening to my bantams. My FIL said that he's been finding flayed open carcasses in the field and he thought the larger birds were getting aggressive with them. Unfortunately I hadn't been able to get out there to assess the situation.
We were going to work on the farmhouse again but both DH and FIL are sick. So I took the boys to my mom and went shopping this morning. My MIL suggested that she and I go over to the farmhouse this afternoon to do at least some work. So after lunch, bath, and putting the baby down for a nap and we get in the car to go the 100 yards down the lane to the farmhouse (my MIL doesn't like walking that far, it's raining, and it is easier to ferry stuff back and forth). As we are driving past the chicken paddock, out of the corner of my eye I see what I first thought to be a mess of feathers on the ground with a naked chicken standing in the middle of it. I slam on the breaks and look. It is a hawk. A tiny one. not much bigger than the bantam it was tearing into.
No wonder why I haven't lost any chickens to hawks before. They've all been too big or fast. These banties are tiny and slow.
Is it bad that I feel a little better about the banties being taken out by a hawk than pecked to death by their flock mates? I'm going to see if I can round them up and sell them before they all become hawk food.