Had my first hawk incident today. After that bobcat and my reinforcing of the fence, I and telling by production increase, my girls have been feeling much safer. . . . Until today a hawk decided to actually fly down to about 15 ft off the ground, circling the flock in the pasture. The girls were already starting to run, but luckily they respond very well to my calls - I immediately let out a loud, high pitched shriek, over and over, and ALL the girls went barreling into their coop. After that, I stalked the hawk as it flew over the Tolbunt pen, and shrieked at it. After it left, I stood guard over the area for about an hour, then finally decided it's time to make my pasture tacky looking. . . . And string up some CD's.
I've now got two long wires filled with CD's, one going East-West on the western corner of the main pasture, and another North-South on the Northern end of the main pasture. From what I hear, this should keep the hawks away at least 50 yards.
So far so good.
I must really say, I love how my girls respond to my calls so well. While setting up the hawk-deterrent, I thought I saw the hawk coming back, so I let out a quick warning call, EVERYONE went running for it, but since my call was so short, most of them stopped just before they got into the coop, looked around, then waited to make sure all was okay, and came back out.