Closed the week out with 47 eggs and the White Rock saving herself from being culled next Monday (D-Day for the meat birds).

A couple of weeks ago, I reported (I think) finding a cache of four eggs in the tack room. While doing some work Saturday, I happened upon the White Rock, once again trying to hide herself in that same location. When she moved to get out of my way, she was sitting on four eggs.

This was odd since I'd been collecting near-normal numbers of eggs from inside the coop all week long. So I watched the White Rock, and she hunkered back down on the eggs. When she got up again I collected them, and later that day my daughter reported seeing an egg in the same location.

So contrary to my belief, the White Rock has been laying eggs - just not always in the coop. So no trip to the butcher for her.

Also on Saturday, while in the house, my wife heard great consternation among the chickens, who were outside near the porch. I went out to investigate and saw two roosters wandering off and reported that they had apparently gotten into a dust-up of some kind. Then my daughter heard and odd sound on the west side of our house. I thought it was the cuckoo clock, but when I peered straight down out one of the windows, I saw a gray bird right at the edge of the house, looking back up at me. We called my wife over, and she confirmed that it was a hawk. I started to run out to see if it was injured when my wife called out "It's got one of the chickens!"

So I backpedaled on the porch to grab a broom to chase it off with and started to run around to the east side of the house. As I did, one of the Rhodie hens came running full tilt back toward the coop. Rounding the corner, I saw the hawk sitting on a post near the house. It saw me coming and took flight, veering over the barn as it left.

Apparently the hawk took after the chickens, who scattered, and the Rhodie ran to the side of the house and hunkered down for protection. The hawk got hold of it, but for whatever reason couldn't take off or go in for the kill. All the stomping and shouting from inside the house apparently encouraged it to give up. And the roos managed to miss out on the whole chance to be a hero, probably because the hen wasn't squawking (or maybe they were upset because they heard the squawks but couldn't find the damsel in distress).

Well, the flock is none the worse for wear. But as my daughter put it, "If Jean-Bob had been around, none of this would have happened."

Indeed.

As I mentioned, Saturday my daughter and I worked on getting one of the stalls ready for a soon-to-be-pregnant doe. We took Clover to get bred with an Alpine buck named Elmo, and we want a separate place when she gets back so the wethers don't give her too hard a time while she's pregnant.

The meeting with Elmo was kind of funny. He knew there was a doe coming right away, and stuck his head out of the fence to greet her. When we got her inside the pen, he spent ten minutes chasing her around, not subtle at all about his intentions, poking his head at her with his tongue stuck out.

Hopefully Clover will wait a week or two before going into heat, giving us time to finish work on the stall and dual-purpose gate I have in mind (to keep her in while the wethers are out and vice-versa). It's going to be busy on the farm until all of that gets done.