Previously, the chicken defense project (or CDP) was a ongoing project of trying to keep the chickens in the pen. After Monday's attack, it has changed into a project of keeping the hawks out.
First, we chose to put our chicken coop in the one fully fenced area in the yard, aka dog pen. Our dogs really couldn't use it anyway as Domino easily jumps the 4 ft fence. But the fence is pretty secure and is buried underground since before Domino could jump, she would dig her way out.
I did a lot of reading about hawks and the red tail hawk is most common during summers around here and is the only one large enough to be a problem for grown chickens. This type of hawk usually hunts in fields and meadows, etc. Even though it is a large hawk, it still needs to be able to swoop down onto something as large as a full grown chicken or rabbit. Our dog pen has two lilac bushes and one very large Rose of Sharon. Add the chicken coop itself and about half of the pen is covered.
The biggest fear we had was when the chickens were much littler and a hawk would have been able to get it without much swooping. But thankfully, we never had a problem.
We've been hearing the hawks calling several weeks. They live in the woods surrounding the park across the street and probably use the sports fields for hunting. Our chickens are fairly smart and would duck under the trees/bushes whenever a hawk would start calling.
Thankfully, on Monday the hawk was not able to kill any of the chickens outright. But we still have the task of protecting them. I read up on different ways of protecting them from the overhead predators. There were many suggestions, but the only one that would really work is running strings across the top of the pen and hanging shining stuff from the strings.
Well, one problem is that we need to be able to walk in this pen so we can't just hang the strings at the top of the fence. Jay instead dug two 2-3 ft holes and put up two 12 ft poles. So about 9-10 ft above ground. I am running strings from the tall posts down to the fence posts and it is looking a little like a circus tent. I'm sure our neighbors and friends will make fun of the whole set up. And I am sure that we will have to take it all down by the time the house goes on the market to sell, as it will hurt the first impression.
We let the chickens out yesterday evening (while I was out working) for the first time since the attack and 3 of them flat out refused to come out of the coop. Poor ladies.
Today's part of the CDP will be hanging the cd's. Let's hope this all works.
what a creative use for old cds! I bet your boys think this idea is so much fun. If this works for you, I'll steal the idea. We've also had small hawks stalking our chicks in their nursery pen outside. We know we need to do some sort of covering over the main coop area but still wanted to be able to walk in there. This might do the trick! They're secure at night with their new coop so we only need to worry about daytime predators and it seems like for both of us, that's just hawks. Good luck!
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