Hawks 2 - Chickens 0

Missing: 2 chickens. One black/white Dominique, answers to the name Jaye-Bird if she isn't busy preening her feathers. One brown/black Araucana, named Henny Penny, lays a blue/green egg every other day.

My husband and I went for a walk this afternoon and when we came back, there were no chickens in the courtyard to greet us. Usually, they are right there to say hello when we drive back from town, or walk down the driveway. We went straight to the coop, and there they were (two chickens, two Guinea hens)-- they were quiet, subdued, just standing there in a huddle. Right away, I knew something was wrong. Two seconds later, I realized that Jaye and Henny Penny weren't in there with the others.

We walked around the house, around the cottage and the barn, into the back of the barn and out the front.... looked underneath the cottage, behind all the bushes, even looked into the fountain where poor Edie-Bird gasped her last water-soaked breath a while back. Not a sign of Jaye or Henny Penny anywhere. No piles of feathers in the grass, no signs of struggle. Nothing.

The only thing we can think of is that the chickens were taken by hawks. I've seen a hawk capture a Blue Jay, back at our old house in Clear Lake. It was so fast, just two seconds for the hawk to fly down and capture the poor Blue Jay in its talons and off the hawk went, too fast for me to see more than a blur of blue as the helpless Blue Jay was taken away.

My only hope is that the end came quickly for both of our chickens. Henny Penny was a sweet bird.... she gave us such pretty eggs every other day, and she was a friendly chicken. Jaye-Bird was growing into such a beautiful chicken, and just this morning, I told my husband that her red comb was growing in so nicely this past couple of weeks. We were expecting her to begin laying eggs any time now, if only she would just quit fluffing up her feathers.

We knew when we got these chickens that hawks and raccoons would be their enemies. My husband did everything he could to safeguard the coop against raccoons who come out chicken-hunting after dark, but there was nothing we could have done to keep the hawks away, save for keeping the chickens locked up in the coop 24 hours a day.

So now we have two chickens-- Dolly (my sweet Rhode Island Red who gives us a big beautiful brown egg every day) and Audrey (the black/brown Aracuna who is past her egg-laying days, but she's such a nice hen). We also have the two Guinea hens (Dottie and Jeanie) who haven't given us eggs, but have begun to give us headaches because they squawk like geese at times, which is typical for these hens. We didn't realize that when we got them, but now that we've heard them screaming, we aren't thrilled with that characteristic of this breed.

My husband asked me if I wanted to go back to Watson's Farm and get more chickens. I told him I'd be happy to get two more chickens, but only if we can bring back the two Guinea hens. I don't even expect Watson to give us a refund for these two hens... I just want to bring them back and be done with all the squawking that they do. They don't have the personality of the chickens, they're not as smart as the chickens, they're not as friendly. We keep feeding them, and all we get in return is the squawking. So I guess my husband is thinking about it. If it were up to me, those two Guinea hens would have been long gone, back to Watson's Farm.

Oh well. I don't know what we can do to keep hawks away. And even if we had been home, we couldn't have saved those chickens from the talons of a hawk. But two hawks? Grabbing two chickens? What are the chances of that happening, for goodness sake?!

When we couldn't find the chickens today, it was my husband who said that he wished the hawks had taken the Guinea hens instead of the chickens-- I was thinking that very same thing, but he had picked out the Guinea hens so I didn't want to say that out loud this afternoon. Had the hawks flown away with Dolly, I would have been really upset, since she's the one who follows me around the yard, who will come when I call her, who lets me pick her up and pet her... she is just the sweetest, most friendliest hen.

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day, Scarlett. Scarlett. Now that's a good name for a chicken, especially another red hen.