The chickens seem resigned to their current state of confinement to the coop. Since there’s only 7 of them, it’s pretty roomy. It won’t be like that for too long, though – batch 1 of the second generation chicks will be out there in a few weeks.
Seeing the hawk swoop down on wild birds fleeing the feeder out back validated that keeping the chickens cooped was the right decision. It’s a small hawk, but clearly deadly to chickens.
The hawk deterrents (owl statue, reflective tape) have arrived and we’ll be putting them out where we’ve seen the hawk. We hope they scare the you-know-what out of any hawks looking for a chicken meal. Wild birds: tell your friends that crows and mockingbirds are welcome here!
Because of the threat of hawk attack, the remaining 6 layers and the rooster have been confined to their coop. They’re not happy about it, and when you think about, it makes total sense. Even if they had witnessed a hawk attack on a flock-mate, they probably don’t remember it now. All they know is that they’re stuck in their nighttime quarters and they’d rather be outside, scratching, running around, and doing their chicken thing.
After the unsuccessful attempt to breed the NZ does last month, it looks like we may have at least one kindling at the end of the month. Today, we spied Ava sporting a “haystache”, which is usually a sign that a doe is pregnant. It’s pretty early (she was bred a week ago), so there’s a possibility this could be a false pregnancy.
