I have spent the last two months building a chicken coop and run. At the end of February, we got six adorable chicks.
I joined the BackyardChickens.com Forum and I am chronicling the construction project on a page there.
One day when the chicks were about eight weeks old, I went out to see them by the garden and found a Coopers' hawk stomping on a chick. This contradicts our local zoo's bird show which specifically says that hawks do not attack chickens. Following the attack and the loss of our chick, I read many posts about predators on the BackYardChickens Forum. Basically it comes down to completely confining the chicks to coop and covered run instead of allowing them to free range.
One particularly heated exchange caught my eye. It reminded me of the intense debates about home and hospital births. One BackyardChickens Forum member described free-range chickens as a free lunch. She is baffled by why people cannot understand that "loose chickens get hurt." She places little value of free-ranging itself, saying that her chickens don't "curse me for thwarting their dreams of freeranging adventure. They don't know about the earthy, groovy, FREE delights of the open range. They don't know and I don't let 'em and we are just fine!"
In reaction to this post, one Forum member remarked that her chickens had been "locked in fort knox and STILL got killed by a weasel!...if they had been free they would be alive today..they could have flown away from the weasel...please stop judging others." Some Forum posts refer to confined chickens as prisoners. Other suggestions for deterring hawks include keeping a big dog, a turkey or even a pig with the chickens. Crows and magpies chase hawks away. Pigeons and doves provide easier prey. Encouraging these other birds to live in your yard is another way to deter hawk chicken attacks.
I am struck by how different each person's values can be. Like the home birth critics, the free range critics see safety in the coop or hospital. Any poor outcomes are attributed to lacking coop design or hospital expertise. Basically, if you build a good enough coop, your chickens will be safe. If you choose your hospital and obstetrician wisely, you and your baby will be safe. On the other hand, the free range proponents place a high value on not just the life of the chickens, but on their quality of life. Women who choose to birth at home value the whole childbirth experience as an opportunity for personal growth. They are also quick to notice the poor outcomes that can occur even in the hospital.
Of course, my chickens are not my children and I do not mean to equate their importance. But still, life and death situations always seem to bring out a person's most basic value system. Clearly, neither side is right or wrong. Every person must figure out what is most important to them and their family.
We are now used to watching the Coopers hawks and red-tailed hawks circle our yard almost every day. I even felt the wind from one that was chasing a tiny songird over my head as I knelt attaching welded wire to a wooden frame. Both of my girls can identify a hawk from the other flying specks in the sky and run to verify that our chicks are safe. We miss the chick that was killed that day. She was an Easter Egger with a stripe on her head. Still, our chickens run around the yard as they choose.
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