Every year, I hatch about 50 chickens inside a simple
cardboard-box incubator (equipped with a light bulb and
thermometer). After the biddies are born, I keep them in
the kitchen for a while, putting the box in the yard for a
few hours on sunny days to let them get used to the
outside.
When the little critters are about two weeks old, I
transfer them to a fenced-off corner of the chicken pen, and
they spend another couple of weeks there until the older
fowl are accustomed to having them around.
The Attack
Some years back–at a time shortly after my young
flock had been moved to outdoor quarters–I discovered
I was losing one or two tiny fledglings a day . . . and it
didn’t take me long to find out why. The problem was hawks
. . . “wings of death” with tremendous appetites for
baby-chicken dinners.
If I stayed out in the yard, the wily predators would just
circle overhead, watching . . . or they’d “hide” in the top
of a tall pine tree and wait for me to go back inside.
Since I couldn’t stand guard all day, it soon became a
contest to see who could outsmart whom . . . and I kept
coming up the loser.
Before long, 16 of my brood had succumbed to the swift
birds of prey, and the same thing was happening to my
neighbors’ flocks. We were all becoming pretty angry and
frustrated, and–even though it’s against the law to
shoot a hawk–some folks began to talk about getting
out the of shotgun.
The Confrontation
The crisis came to a head one afternoon when I
walked out the back door just in time to startle a hawk
into dropping the piece of yellow fluff it had, that
instant, grabbed. I picked the poor victim up but, of
course, it was already dead. (Hawks hit mighty hard when
they swoop down on their prey.) Holding the limp little
form–still soft and warm–made my temper
boil!
I looked up and spotted the villain sitting perfectly still
in the top of the tall pine near the chicken pen, and I
thought, “To heck with that blasted law, I’m going to
protect what’s left of my chicks!”
I went into the house for my .22 rifle . . . brought it out
and put it up to my shoulder . . . and got the hawk in my
scope. Suddenly, I was face to face with my enemy, and I
was stunned: The bird was a truly majestic and beautiful
creature … and I knew I couldn’t kill it.
When the hawk finally flew away, I just stood there feeling
helpless. There was no doubt it’d soon be back.
The Solution
The very next day — while I was changing the line on
one of my fishing reels — I got an idea that I figured
just might convince the hawks to start catching field mice
instead of my future egg-layers.
The stakes around my chicken pen, made from mill trimmings,
are a foot or so higher than my head. I tied the old
fishing line around the tops of the posts, and crossed it
back and forth until I had lines — about a foot
apart — stretched over the entire area. The whole job
took me less than 30 minutes.
Then I sat out on the porch steps and watched my
magnificent adversary soar high in the sky, make a few
circles over the chicken yard . . . and fly out of sight.
It was hard to believe a bird could see the nearly
invisible monofilament line from that distance, but
apparently the hawk did!
That was 10 years ago, and I’ve never lost another chick to
a hawk! The fantastic birds are just too smart to fly into
a place they know they might not be able to get out of in a
hurry. (Just one word of caution: As soon as the line’s no
longer needed, it should be removed. Otherwise, it’ll rot
in the sunshine, break and fall into the pen, snare any
chicken that wanders into it . . . and you’ll have the task
of freeing a squawking, flapping hen from yards of
tangled-up line.)
My father refers to my anti-hawk technique as “chicken-pen
cobwebs” . . . and says he wishes he’d thought of it years
ago!
