I was watching our Light Sussex
chicks forage in the garden when…out of the blue…a hawk swooped
down on top of them. Chicks scattered everywhere, I screamed in
anguish, our scaredy cat ran for cover — quite the excitement for our
quiet little farm. I think the combo was just too much for the
Sharp-shinned (or was it a Cooper’s?) Hawk because he missed his prey
and flew on down the powerline cut and out of sight.
Except for losing
chicks to rats,
we’ve never had any trouble with predators on our farm. I’ve
always given credit to our well-trained
dog, who patrols the
perimeter day and night, but I think I should also consider the fact
that forest
pastures have more
going for them than whatever food the trees produce. Those trees
shield our flock from avian predators. Our open garden is much
more like a traditional pasture, with no cover for the chicks to hide
in and no canopy to shield our tasty morsels from birds of prey soaring
overhead. Small wonder that our near miss occurred when the
chicks got bold enough to try out this open habitat.
I wrote previously that chickens
are much more likely to go out on pasture if trees and bushes are
present, and I can’t
say I blame them. I wonder if the reason our
laying flock refused to forage in the oat and pea pasture was because it was suddenly
a wide open expanse with no tall weeds to protect them? Yet
another data point to add to the mix as I design the optimal chicken
playground.
Trees protect chickens from predators
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About The Author
Anna & Mark
Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton are a pair of back-to-the-landers who have been homesteading for over a decade.
The coopers are really bad this year, I lost 4 chickens this summer to them; 2 young pullets, a very young cockerel, and my dominant (bantam) rooster. Our pasture has no bushes and only a few sparse trees, I planted a fig that I think will be a nice hiding spot when it gets bigger. For now I stacked several hay bales in random spots around the pasture for them to dive into.
That’s awful! Good idea with the hay bales. When I was reading up on large-scale pasturing setups, I saw that several places were making “artificial trees” that were just small roofed areas that chickens could dive under. Something like that might help until your trees grow up.