Last year was a hard year for chickens at Creekside Cottage. We had always let them free range with little issues. Their coop was in the horse pasture near the barn and we had no predators. Then this last spring through summer we started to lose one chicken here, and one there, and realized that we had a hawk visiting regularly.
We could here his call and see him circling. We knew that he'd been finding meals here. We had our new chicks and when they were old enough to leave the brooder we set them up in the enclosed dog run with a small coop and our two remaining hens. One Sunday morning we came out of the house to leave for church and their sitting on the top of the dog run (the top is enclosed in fencing too) was the hawk looking down at all the tasty young chicks that he could not get too!
We decided to leave them all in the dog run until he didn't visit anymore.
The chicks were so cute.
And grew into beautiful hens and two roosters.
They are happy and contented and laying now.
Very exciting to be getting our own eggs again!
6 comments:
Very cool I am sure. How frightening for them to have a hawk circling around. You could make them a sign that says, "Go get a rat!"
Love your chickens (and their names)! I am glad that you found a safe place for them. I am chuckling at Vee's comment! Yes!! :D
I'm glad those chickens are safe once again! I really hope to have chickens one day...we can't as long as we live here though. And speaking of hawks, just last evening on our local news there was a story about a family's pet Chihuahua being swooped up in the claws of a hawk. Unfortunately, the poor little thing didn't make it. Sometimes the ways of nature are not very pleasant :(
We had chickens as children. We named ours too. Yours are sooooo cute! Mimi xxx
Long live the chickens!!!
Love fresh eggs! Seems to be a dying art around here...
Love the babies!
hughugs
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