Good morning, Deb and I have been very fortunate not to have very many wild predators attack our flock. Most of the flock kills has been from "range dogs". I have heard ranchers call them "town dogs". Usually once the bird is killed it is off to the next one. No interest in eating just killing. These attacks are rare too but much more common than the wild kind.
The biggest reason for this is we have trained our birds to go to coop at night. Wild predators are much more active at night. Broody hens that we can not find or don't know about are usually the victims. Knock on wood we find most of these hens and get them safe. Usually the clue that we have a hen out is are broody poo's. We won't go into any further description but it sets me looking for the hen.
Probably the biggest day time threat from wild animals are raptors. We have had both sharp shinned hawks and road runners hunt the chicken feeder. These guys do not send up the chicken alarm call because these guys are after the house sparrows.
Usually when the roosters spot a hawk it is a single alarm and all the birds run for cover. Shortly the roosters give the all 's clear and the barnyard is back inaction.
Recently all the hens were going off like there was a huge "egg off" The strange thing was this was in the back yard under the mulberry tree and stranger yet I never found any eggs. I had noticed this going on for a few days. It was about this time that I noticed one of the bante hens with blood on her face. Bante's aree incredibly shy so I had to make my observations from a close distance (4 or 5 feet). She was a bit lethargic but no real prominent wounds.
I was taking a nap and all of a sudden there was a huge ruckus around the mulberry so I decided I really needed to check this out. As I was exiting the back door I noticed a coopers hawk take off from a white object and the barnyard became quiet. Sadly the white object was the hen mentioned earlier. She wasn't dead but near death. This caused me to have another one of those act like an adult moments.
Anyway now that I am "clueful", I would promptly go to the mulberry and chase off the hawk. After a number of times the bird left the property. I still expect to see it again but it has been a couple of weeks since.
Ah yes I am aware now.
This week I harvested chard ,green onions, carrots,lettuce, beets,summer squash, cucumbers, okra, chilies, beans, and eggplant. In storage sweet potatoes, butternuts, and bulb onions. Please email as to availability.
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