DEAR JOAN: For the past 3½ months, I have carefully tended three pandemic pets: Ready Freddie, a 2½-pound California Gray that’s always ready for some new adventure; Lettie, a 3-pound Lacy Wyandotte that never lets me catch her; and the always thirsty Sippy, a 3-pound Easter Egger.
I hope to be rewarded with eggs in the next month or so, but I worry that my breakfast fantasies will not come to fruition because of a recently arrived new neighbor. About a month ago, I noticed a handsome red-tailed hawk sitting on my fence, eyeing the bird feeder, or rather, its visitors. Now I see two red-tails in my immediate neighborhood, and for the past two days have heard the “scree!” of what I guess are babies, as the mated pair seem to be quite busy procuring food for them.
My chickie babies love a chance to get out of their small chicken run, dust bathe and peck for bugs in my well-fenced backyard. I have bushes and a grape arbor that offer some protection, and have also installed a sail over my patio to provide even more, but my chickens don’t limit themselves to these areas in spite of my tactical placement of water and treats within them.
They also seem to have zero fear of the shadow of a hawk hovering overhead, so right now I am letting them out only with my close supervision.
What to do? Must they be confined to the run all day, and if so, for how long? Can chickens be trained to stay in the bushes, or to scuttle into the safety of a coop when a shadow looms overhead? If so, how? How big would a chicken have to be for a hawk to ignore it as a possible source of nutrition? How long does it take for hawks to raise their young, and do they leave the area afterwards, or is this going to be a lifelong menace for my girls?
Does the presence of a cat and an alert beagle watchdog, both of whom have a laissez-faire attitude toward the chickens, provide extra security? Is there anything I can put in my yard to keep hawks away without harming any of my existing pets or local birds?
Marta, Orinda
DEAR MARTA: To keep your chicks safe, you’ll need to keep them in their run. If they need more strutting space, you can always enlarge it, but that’s where they are safest.
Unless your chicks grow to the size of ostriches, they will be at risk from the hawks, which will hang around in the area as long as there is food for them.
The best defense for your roaming chicks is a rooster, but most municipalities ban them because of their crowing. A rooster keeps an eye on his flock, warning of danger. On their own, hens aren’t nearly as self-aware and while they might have some instincts to run and hide, the hawk usually is too fast for them.
Your being out with them provides some measure of protection, and a dog also can help, but small dogs and cats themselves can be seen by the raptors as prey.
Cover the top of the run with orange netting and hang reflective devices around the coop. If you let the chicks out, stay with them, and keep food and water inside the run as some hawks target birds at their feeders.
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