Watch for Hawks!

The chickens were making a terrible ruckus, so I strolled over to see what was amiss.  Needless to say, they had good reason to be alarmed.

We’ve had terrible hawk pressure this year, losing almost 30 birds.  We tried a number of different things, and finally ended up putting a netting over the entire coop.   Seems to have done the trick – this hawk was stuck hanging out on the roof, and was unable to fly down and get his lunch.

We’re going to make it more mobile by attaching the netting to thicker twine for support, and clipping it on the ends so it moves smoothly with the umbrella.  Hopefully this keeps work for our next brood.  We’re sick of loosing so many layers (even though the hawks are quite beautiful in their own right).  Hawks – please catch all of the mice and rats instead.