It had been a busy Friday. The co-op members had spent the morning telling stories and showing off our flock to a local publication. It was a fairly nice day, so we decided to let the chickens free range for a bit after the photographer had gotten all the pictures he needed. The writer and photographer, a husband and wife team, were friends of Wendy’s and we had invited them over for lunch after the interviews were over. We had just seen them off and were cleaning up when the phone rang. It was Peggy.
“I just got home and found most of the hens hiding in the coop! There were also some hiding under the trees and bushes, squawking up a storm, that all ran back to the pen as soon as they saw me. I did a head count and there are four missing. Could you come help me look for them?”
Wendy and I jumped in the car to head over to the coop. I was imagining the worst – A brazen predator attack, perhaps coyotes, in the middle of the day had wiped out almost 20% of our flock. We arrived to find Peggy and Jeanne walking in the row pines a short distance south of the coop. They told us they thought they had heard a chicken over there, but were unable to locate it. Peggy told us the story again, obviously shaken and distraught. We began to walk the perimeter around the coop, looking for tracks on the still partially snow covered ground but could find none from beast or fowl. As I moved around to the East side of the coop, a flutter of motion caught my eye. Then another, and another: Feathers, lots of them, were stirring in and around the leaves in the gentle breeze. The majority seemed to have come from a Barred Rock, but there were also what looked like a few Buff Orpington feathers as well. There was no snow on the ground here, just pine needles and a scattering of leaves so it was difficult to see if there were any predator tracks. What was definitely missing was any sign of a struggle. The ground was relatively undisturbed save for a few patches where the chickens had been scratching. The only obvious sign was one large scuff and gouge in the dirt right next to a large pile of feathers. I immediately thought “hawk”, but how could a hawk take four full grown hens? I know chickens aren’t the brightest critters in the world, but I just couldn’t imagine that it would take them until the fourth attack from a hawk to figure out that something was amiss and head for cover.
While pondering this new evidence, we all headed off in separate directions looking for additional clues. It wasn’t long before we heard Jeanne call out.
“I found one.” she said, in a rather calm and quiet voice.
From her tone, I assumed that she had found a dead hen. As I walked over towards where Jeanne was standing however, I was pleasantly surprised to see a rather disheveled Araucana emerging from under the low branches of a fallen pine tree. The hen had obviously found herself a good hiding place and she wasn’t about to come out until she knew there were friends about. Evidently the sight of Jeanne had convinced her that the coast was clear and she could come out into the open.
With the discovery of a live hen, we all redoubled our efforts with Peggy taking Wendy with her to the pines where she thought she had heard a chicken earlier. However it was Jeanne who seemed to have the knack for finding the girls that day.
“Two more!” she called as a pair of Rhode Island Reds came out from behind the garage and began hustling over to the coop.
So apparently only the Barred Rock had fallen victim after all, making our most likely suspect a hawk. Peggy and Wendy went into the coop and did a head count of the agitated chickens as best they could. Their efforts confirmed that there was still one hen missing. They went further and counted by breed just to ensure that it was a Barred Rock that was absent from the group. I could hear Peggy and Wendy going down the list of breeds that made up our flock, counting off the number of each variety as they progressed. When they were finished, they concluded that we were one Barred Rock short.
Not quite willing to give up on the last bird just yet, Peggy, Wendy and I returned to the pines. Peggy was pretty sure she had heard a chicken over there. Maybe she was hiding, or perhaps injured. We fanned out, going row by row, looking for feathers, tracks, any sign at all. We looked on the ground, under the trees, up in the branches and around the perimeter. No sign of a chicken whatsoever.
Wendy and I headed home, lamenting the loss of the Barred Rock. They are sturdy, even-tempered birds and good layers to boot. We hadn’t been home long when the phone rang. It was Peggy and I initially assumed she had found the missing hen. Instead, the discovery that she related over the phone only served to deepen the mystery. She had returned to the coop where the hens had calmed considerably and performed another breed count. To her surprise all four Barred Rocks were present, but there was a Rhode Island Red missing! She recounted again and again but kept coming up with the same result. In all the activity and confusion of earlier events, they must simply have miscounted, an easy enough thing to do.
But the ground outside had been littered with feathers that could only have come from a Rock. Had our sturdy girl managed to fight off her attacker? If so, might the missing Red still be out there somewhere? Only one way to find out, so Wendy went back over to do one more sweep with Peggy. Nothing came of it however and we came to the conclusion that while we were down one chicken, somewhere out there was a well fed hawk. I think we all secretly hoped that s/he got a belly ache from eating so much!
The final bit of the mystery played out on Monday and it was revealed to Wendy and me by yet another phone call from Peggy. The Red had been found, quite dead and half-eaten, right next to the stand of pines that had been the focus of so many searches. By the time Wendy and I arrived, Peggy had buried the remains. She walked us over to the scene of the crime and pointed out where she had found the bird. I was expecting a scene full of blood and gore, but there were only a few feathers scattered about. She then showed us where she had discovered a significant number of feathers from the hen under an adjacent pine tree. While I don’t specifically remember anyone searching that exact spot, it’s hard to believe that we wouldn’t have seen that hen had she been lying out in the open like that. Had the corpse been there all along, or had some scavenger dragged it out to finish what the hawk started? Had the hawk been scared off it's meal or did it discover it didn't care much for the taste of chicken? We will likely never know for sure what happened to our Red.
Matt
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