# So Happy!



## kjohnstone (Mar 30, 2013)

I have 2 things to be very happy about! Not necessarily in this order:
1. My pullets started laying on 7/5, but only one little egg a day, skipping only Sunday (a week ago). Yesterday I collected _2_ eggs, the second one was 48 grams (5 grams bigger than the previous biggest)
2. Yesterday, I spotted a small hawk in my willow-tree (50 ft west of hen pen) and in the 2 cottonwoods west and south just a little of that (neighbor yards). Then I spotted a second, larger hawk, and they were whistling at each other. I thought to myself, good thing my pen is covered with chicken wire (and partly tarped for shade). This a.m. (7/14) while I was out in the pen, there was a rustling, crackling sound the tarp usually only makes when the wind is blowing. I thought 'What the h___' and pushed up on the chicken wire/tarp, and the noise stopped. Then I heard hawk call. After a few minutes I stepped out from under the tarp, looked up, and there, on the lowest utility wire that runs over the henpen (cable, the power lines are above that) was one of the hawks. It stayed there while I was in the pen, then it roosted on the top of the 6 ft fence that divides my 2 back fence neighbors, and was no more than 20 ft from my girls (who were being their usual a.m. talkative for me. ) I think the hawk had been walking on top of the tarp. Experienced a brief shudder, then joy that my girls are all safe and not free-ranging. Happy Happy. Maybe next year for free-ranging!


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## Apyl (Jun 20, 2012)

Congrats on the eggs. Yup hawks are definitely a hindrance when free ranging. I've lost 2 chicks to hawks this year, what's really bad is the bald eagles. We lost 5 ducks over the winter to bald eagles.


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## kjohnstone (Mar 30, 2013)

Bummer on the ducks. I know how bad it would make me feel!


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## kjohnstone (Mar 30, 2013)

2 eggs yesterday, 3 today (so far)! Not time yet for the araucanas yet, so all eggs are brown. I think the Ozzies just started the rest are the amber-whites. (for me, Ozzie=australorp, faster to write)


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## aacre (May 5, 2013)

That's awesome, Karen! 
You sound like me when i collect eggs. I'm always happy every day that I get eggs. Lately, my production has been lower than usual, but I think the heat was a main factor. I never grow tired of collect the eggs though! 
Hopefully those hawks leave soon. Do you lock them away in their coop at night, or do you leave a door open? I don't know what the hawk would try, but you never know! I have some hawks around my house too, but since they aren't free ranging this year, I haven't lost any to them. There are other chickens on the block that are free-ranging, so they leave mine alone pretty well.
Yay for eggs!!


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## kjohnstone (Mar 30, 2013)

The chickens are awesome! Yesterday and today, 4 brown eggs each day! (I have 6 brown-egg layers, the Amber-whites and the Australorps) who are supposed to be like egg machines. The araucana x's aren't laying yet, didn't expect them to be, but Trouble's comb has started pinking up (not hawkeye yet), so maybe in a month (??..)

Tuesday I just missed a photo op, I had gone to the henpen and spotted _*4_*hawks of various sizes in my willow tree. At the same time. I went in the house to get my camera, put in batteries and card, and by the time I made it outside, they were gone. But I was just out there, and heard a hawk calling from close by, so they haven't left yet. I don't have a coop yet, but my pen is 8' by 11' and 6'tall, with chicken wire over the top. The girls are safe.

Yesterday, I took out a small bowl of a mash-up (applesauce, corn-grits, instant oatmeal, freshly smashed-up garlic, olive oil, flax-seed oil (food grade) and whey protein (w/soy protein)). The girls saw the bowl, and apparently smelled it...They greeted me SO enthusiastically I could have sworn they were a pack of fair-size puppies - they were leaping and fluttering in the air around me, trying to get to the bowl I was bringing in, when they weren't crowding around my feet. Oh yes, and squawking, I could swear they were saying "so give it to us already".


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## kaufranc (Oct 3, 2012)

I love it when they run to you! Eager to see what kind of treat you have brought them. It makes me smile!


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## kjohnstone (Mar 30, 2013)

They definitely made me smile! (laugh out loud even)


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## kjohnstone (Mar 30, 2013)

All things considered... from first egg on 7/5, by the end of 7/18, covering 14 days, only 1 day of no eggs, 4 eggs both yesterday and the day before, no more than 6 of my 8 girls laying (I'll know when the last 2 start, the eggs won't be brown...), I'm doing pretty well. Oh yeah, I've already cracked open 2 double-yolkers!


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