Update: Hawk Protection

Since our hawk problems began, I have been researching ways to protect my chickens from hawks. During my research I learned that everyone seems to think the best way to protect chickens from hawks is to fully cover their run, and I agree with this. The problem is netting can be expensive and time consuming to set up.  But do you know what is great, many people are just like you and want to protect their hens, without spending much money at all. After of course, much trial and error (Sorry, I can't assure you animal testing wasn't part of this!) these individuals found many other great ways to protect their hens.

One thing a few people came up with is to hang reflective items to scare the hawk! Attach fishing line to CDs, pie pans, or any other reflective items and hang them all around your chickens yard. Although you will not be 100% hawk free, it sounds as though this is still a great improvement from nothing.

Another idea is providing shelter for your chickens. It can be as simple as a pile of logs and sticks with gaps in between them, to as complicated as a disguised hideaway made of anything you could imagine. What I chose discuss today is in between. Fence off a corner of the chicken yard, with sturdy wire fencing and cover the top with either the wire fencing or wood. Cut a small opening in the side of the fencing that is just barely big enough for your largest hen to squeeze through. You would be surprised at how much a chicken can squeeze while in danger! Next, disguise the fencing with a pile of logs, sticks, leaves and other debris, making sure to leave the opening open. After that, put some of your chickens favorite food in the hideout to show them how to get in and out of it. I haven't tried this idea yet, but many people say that it works great!

Of course you've heard of how protective roosters can get (I have scars to prove it!) they will do anything to save their hens, and this is no exception. If you live in town like me, roosters are most likely illegal and this paragraph will not do you any good. But, if you do live in an area where they are allowed, you should probably get a rooster or two. Though a rooster will not solve your hawk problem permanently, he may give his life to let hens get away, or even, on rare occasions, scare the hawk off. My point is, though it might be a good idea to get a rooster (you might even get some baby chickens if you get one, "10 for the price of 1!") you have to admit he will not provide ongoing protection and most likely the hawk will come back.

One more idea. Any plants or bushes you can provide, especially tall grasses and will be very beneficial to your chickens. They will feel much safer among the plants and hawks are less likely to target them.

Thank you so much for reading and if you have any advice to give, please comment!!!!!! I hope these ideas help. 

The chicken lover,

Iris

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

bibliography: hawk protection

bibliography: was it a hawk that killed my chickens?!

bibliography: hawk protection, electric wire

bibliography: hawk protection, great article, fishing line spider web

THE CHICKEN COOP... hawk protection

The chicken coop... It keeps the chickens alive at night when predators roam freely, it provides a sense of security and shade during the hottest parts of the day, it is the chickens home. 

Our chickens have roamed freely around our yard, pooping on the patio and eating all of the plants in our garden, and destroying all of what little landscaping we thought we had for the 3 years we have kept them. Soon after we started keeping chickens, the predators started arriving. First the fox. We let the chickens out when it still dark and I swear, that fox had been circling our yard trying to figure out how to get to our flock for at least a year, before we made that very horrible mistake. That fox then happily made off with 5 of our most loved chickens.

Our dog, Veeka the french bulldog is completely fine with our full grown hens and has never hurt any of them but is a completely different story when it comes to chicks... She has now killed 4 of them, in 3 different occasions. 

The hardest predator to deal with is the hawk in my opinion because that can fly. We got home from school one day to a beautiful creature (the hawk) perched contently on our fence by the chicken coop. 2 chickens were dead, beheaded to be more specific, that day was very sad. Very very sad... 4 days ago we learned that a hawk had made a nest in our neighbors trees. Soon after we were outside and saw a large bird fly by. The chickens immediately froze (great getaway, right?) and looked up at the sky. I learned on the internet that chickens can tell the silhouette of a hawk apart from all harmless birds so we knew there was a hawk on the loose. So, to solve our problem, we bought some deer netting from tractor supply and put it over a fenced in part of our yard. This was yesterday. At first I felt bad about them not being able to free range, but I definitely feel safer for them now.

You can see the netting at the top of the picture. This insures the chickens will stay in, and the hawks out. In the picture you can see a black shade tarp providing more shade for our hens.

One more thing before I go, well 2...

WARNING: Rhode Island Reds and New Hampshire Reds will literally kill other chickens, they are so territorial. One of our silkies was killed by them. They will do fine if they know that chicken all their life, but if a new chicken is introduced into the flock, they will do everything they can to show they are boss... Sadly, they even bullied a chicken (Percy) who we have had from the very beginning because she lets them get away with it. She never fights back, she is too sweet. Yesterday we came apon them trying to kill percy, and our other chicken Eggie so we immediately switched all of our reds with our 2 silkies and now the reds are in the eglu and the silkies are adapting to their new habitat with the rest of our hens.

ANOTHER WARNING, HEAT RELATED: Yesterday we found one of our much loved hens, who had been acting fine 2 hours earlier, dead in the nesting box. Her name was Omelet and she was a Leghorn. It was about 105 degrees. All of the hens had access to fresh drinking water and shade but laying an egg is hard work. We hope no more hens die in this crazy weather, and we feel like we were doing everything we could, even running a sprinkler back there to keep the hens alive, but the intense heat won. If you live in an area where there is heat above 90 degrees you need to make sure your chickens have access to clean drinking water, shade, and possibly even a fan in times like these. Hens may stop laying eggs in extreme heat waves, and instead of being mad, be glad. Laying an egg, like I said earlier can be a dangerous job in intense heat, and you could lose one of your prized hens because of it.

Thank you so much for reading and I hope some of these tips will help you ensure your hens the best life possible. Obviously, yesterday was a very, very busy day at our house.

Your chicken loving friend,

Iris

Fresh eggs!!!!!!!

           There are 3 main reasons that you have chickens or are thinking about getting them. Meat, eggs, and show (or in our case pets). Right now we are going to talk about egg layers. A hen starts laying eggs when she is about 6 months old. The first few eggs will be considerably smaller and misshapen compared to the eggs the hen will start to lay in anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
   
            Once we got an egg smaller than a robin's egg and, because we wanted to keep it because it was so cool, we decided to "blow it." So I got my needle and my steady hand (Actually, its not so steady, my hands shake like a leaf when I  try to concentrate) and I proceeded to poke a hole in the egg and got the surprise of a lifetime when I was about to blow out the insides. There was no insides! The chicken had laid a shell. Then my steady hand went a little crazy and accidentally smashed this once in a lifetime egg and I was really sad. End of story. Now lets get back to business before I tear up.

            Anyway, the hen will continue lay eggs for a few years but at around the 3rd year, the amount of eggs she lays will  decrease. A chicken usually lives to be at least 5 yrs. old (If no animals or sicknesses get to it first) and some have been known to live to be as old as 15!
          
            MYTH: You have to have a rooster to get eggs.  Actually, your hen can lay eggs no matter what, but without a rooster, the eggs won't be fertile. That means that no cute little chicks will hatch from your eggs if if a rooster does not inhabit your yard. (For some, this may be a good thing.)
         
             Good egg layers lay an egg about every 26 to 30 hours. The chicken feels the urge to lay an egg probably the same way a human feels they need to go to the bathroom. The hen will literally search the yard to find a safe egg laying spot and often overlook the nesting box you have carefully crafted for them to find a better spot nestled in between your cucumber and tomatoes (After, of course they eat all the little baby cucumbers) and spend a full half hour constructing their new nest to perfection. Then they might spend another 15-30 minutes laying their egg. I have been lucky enough to get there just as the egg comes out (Well, some people may hesitate a little at that "lucky" statement)  of what we refer to as "the Egg-hole" yes, thats what we call it. (Go ahead, laugh all you want, but its actually a pretty accurate name. I mean, we are talking about a hole that an egg comes out of here, right?)

 Worst case scenario (Actually, its not that bad): You found a hidden egg laying spot with tons of eggs and you have no idea how long they have been there for, meaning you don't know if they are still edible. There is in fact, a very simple solution to your huge problem. Get a clear cup and fill it with room temperature water. Put the eggs in one by one. If the egg sinks, go ahead, eat it raw (DONT!!!!! I WAS JUST JOKING MA!) What I meant to say was cook it first, but it is definitely edible. If the egg floats, or hesitates before it sinks slowly to the bottom, it is bad. Throw it out immediately unless you want your house smelling like rotten eggs! We do this routinely once or twice every two weeks and throw out all suspicious eggs.

Two freshly laid eggs, small compared to store bought eggs, but "oh the joy" you get when you find them.

The chickens lay eggs in the nesting box most of the time but they occasionally lay in crazy places such as the garden beds, bushes, in the grill basket, flower pots and other weird places. (Some of which we have not yet found)

Here is one of the crazy places I was talking about. This chicken (Eggy) laid about 14 eggs in this place before my dad spotted her flying up there and wondered why. This is a honeysuckle vine/bush that grew on top of our 4 foot fence so she's about 5 feet up there. Did I mention chickens love high places?

 

Here is another crazy egg laying spot Ditto (yes, her name is Ditto) has constructed in one of our fenced in garden beds. You may be wondering why she is in a garden bed we obviously didn't want her in, well the answer is: chickens can fly. Do you want to know something funny, Ditto and Eggy share the same father, our rooster Lou-Lou who we had to give to a farm because he was chasing us, and wouldn't stop no matter how much we threatened him. 

This is a beautiful assortment of our chicken's eggs. The Rhode Island Red eggs (the 4 brown eggs on the right side) are medium sized eggs, but as the chicken matures, the eggs will probably become larger. (our Rhode Island Red's just started laying eggs a few days ago!) 

mmmmmm... eggs! Every once in awhile you may get a double or even triple yolk. We had quite a surprise when we got two double yolk eggs in a row from one chicken!

I hope all of these helpful hints have been helpful. Be sure to check out my other post as well, it covers some different information. If you have any questions feel free to comment and I will try to answer your questions. 

your chicken loving friend,

Iris

SOURCES:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_years_do_chickens_lay_eggs_for

my chickens

Inside "The Lodge." In the upper left corner is the nesting box. The piece of wood is a perch. Chickens feel safer on a perch even if it is only a couple feet of the ground. Most of our chickens sleep on the perch. The food and water dishes have to be refilled almost every day.

"The Lodge" as we call it from the outside. 6 of our 15 chickens sleep in here at night while the other 9 sleep in our Eglu chicken coop. 

The Eglu!!!!! the perfect backyard chicken coop for 3-5 hens.

Your probably wondering if chickens are just dirty animals all around, and although they don't bathe in water (At least they wouldn't choose to) they do keep fairly clean. They need a nice pile of dry dirt to "dust" in. They LOVE to flop around in the dirt to get bugs off (Such as chicken lice, humans can't get them thank god.)  I think it also cools them down (Have you ever rolled around in the dirt, I have and it was the best experience I ever had until my mom spotted me. Luckily the chickens ma's can't complain because they do it to.) This is a picture of our beloved chicken named Silkie. (Her breed is also a Silkie, we are so creative with our name choices, yes, every one of our 15 chickens has a name.) We have three others that look exactly like her, except she is always the most dirty. We can't seem to figure out why.

This is my mom Anne feeding the hens taco shells. (Did i mention they pretty much eat anything?) Surprisingly 14 of the 15 chickens are on this picture. One of the silkies has a very hard time seeing and it was halfway across the yard making a lot of noise. The black and white one (3rd from the right) is named Harvey. She (Yes she, but we just call her a him.) is the flock leader, or boss.

This is Silkie (shown above dusting and looking particularly messy,) gaping, not surprisingly, because of the 103 degrees temperatures! 

I bet your thinking what the heck do I do with them in the night it must be so much work to get them to go in at night, I mean its not like they go in to their house when it gets dark... hold it right there cowboy, they do!!!!!! Every night (After they have gotten used to their new home) when the sun goes down, they slowly stop what they are doing and sleepily trudge into their little house and go to bed. All you have to do is go outside and lock them in (Unless you have an over population problem, then just let the neighborhood fox get them for you) and in the morning all you gotta do is go let them out (Make sure the sun is up, we had a very traumatic experience once. Who would've guessed a fox is still out and about at five thirty in the morning, we sure didn't, and lost 5 hens because of it!) and check their food and water. By check I mean if the food dish is empty, you fill it up. Chickens are not like dogs in that way, they will only eat if their hungry (Which is always) so it is best to keep their dish refilled at all times.  If their water dish is empty (Which it should NEVER be) you sure as heck better fill it up, especially if it is hot out. Chickens like all living things that I'm aware of, can get dehydrated and die. Yes, not enough water is one of the MANY things chickens can die from. One more thing before I go. In the summer when it is hot do not call 911 if your chicken is walking around with its mouth open. (For that matter, you should never really call 911 about a chicken. I'm pretty sure even well mannered cops would laugh at you) the mouth open thing is called gaping, it is like panting for a dog. If they are gaping though, do check their water supply, please.

I will write more info on these matters in future days but if you have any immediate concerns, please feel welcome to comment on this and I will try my best to answer your questions.

Your chicken loving friend,

Iris