October 29, 2010
Friday, 9:07 am
Sheer terror broke out in the chicken coop this morning. At 8 am, I awoke to the sound of screaming chickens. The Freddy Kruger of Chickenville, with his razor-sharp talons, had decided to strike. A hawk was continuously flying into the sides of the run and the poor chickens, completely terrified, would tear to the other side of the coop, piling into and on top of each other, only to have the hawk then fly to whatever side they were on.
I started screaming at the hawk from my bedroom window and he paid me not one bit of mind. I jumped out of bed, grabbed my cane and went out after him. Insolent little booger wouldn’t even fly until I was within six feet of him and then only to fly to a nearby tree until I threw a dead branch at him.
The chickens, not knowing that he cannot get into the cage with them, had smashed themselves into each other like a stampede trying to escape a burning house, there were broken and missing feathers, bloody beaks and faces.
Afterward, the larger chickens all crept into the nesting boxes to hide, even the ones who had not begun laying yet. I felt a little tickle on my ankles and looked down to find the two bantams, Goldie and Raven, hiding under the pants legs of my pajama’s.
So here it is, 50 degrees out and I’m standing in the chicken run in my pj’s, trying to comfort the terrified chickens. No wonder they have been so skittish lately and Goldie and Raven stopped laying. Yesterday I thought it was cute that they were both in their boxes near the end of the day, it was very picturesque. Now I know they were probably hiding out from the damned hawk!
I have decided hawks and I no longer like each other. This is war.
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