As I was out on the deck this morning, I noticed the chickens were going crazy in the corner of their pen and were just making so much noise. Our chickens don't ever sound like this and as I looked towards them, I saw one make a break for it over the fence and through the string that is strung above our fence.
I headed out the front door in order to grab her and put her back in the pen. When they get out, they never go far. Once I reached the driveway, I noticed something the wrong color in the corner of the pen, (opposite where the chickens were trying to escape.). I rushed over there to discover a very large hawk pinning one of my Silverlaced Wyandotts down to the ground. I started screaming and waving my arms to no gain. I grabbed the closest thing to me which was the door to one of the door crates and ran to the corner of the pen. The hawk moved over a bit, which caused the chicken to move too. The hawk, of course, grabbed the chicken again. I am pretty sure that I was screaming like a banshee as I ran around the pen to get to the gate and get in there to help. Waving a metal dog crate door and screaming made the hawk move from the chicken and upto the top of the fence. I wouldn't let up and chased it until it was in a tree in the yard. The hawk, of course, wasn't going to leave because it thought it was getting an easy meal. I started gathering chickens and getting them into the coop, starting with the one the hawk had pinned. She was so scared, but thankfully, unhurt. All of the chickens were very shaken and allowed me to grab them quickly. They didn't even run away. Once I secured the 7 still in the yard, I went looking for the one that had run away. The hawk ended up having a friend in another tree! Both flew away empty handed. Joe and I scoured the yard for well over an hour in search of one scared New Hampshire Red. We couldn't find her. I went ahead and opened the gate to the chicken yard (since the coop is secure) and put out a little food and water in the back yard under the top half of the dog crate. I wanted to give her another place to hide and be safe. We had plans to go swimming today so we had to leave, but Joe really didn't want to leave. He didn't want us to give up. I was pretty sure she was still alive, just hiding.
We went swimming and had a pretty good time. Only one not great thing, but that's a different story.
Once we got home and out of the car, Joe said he heard the chicken. We looked a little and then he heard her again and I did too. And there she was, hiding under some bushes next to the house. She was not there earlier, but was there now. She didn't want to get caught, but we managed to get ahold of her and returned her to the coop. Ah, all of them are safe.
The feathers on the ground show that there were 3 attempts from the hawks. Both Buff Orpingtons and one Silver Wyandott are missing several feathers, but don't appear to have any major injuries.
As a side note, it was 87 degrees inside the house when I returned home. I turned on the air. Much better now.
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