Rural Gardening: Help identifying breeds II, 1 by Clare_CA

Clare_CA wrote:
Hi everyone, thanks for the info. Joyce, you are so right about brugs being a lot of work. I had 35 or so at one time, not counting seedlings, but I eventually got rid of all but 3, and only two of them are in the ground. I'm very glad to hear that they will probably ignore my brugs, but I'll probably put a little fencing around them just in case. I know I'm going to have to put fencing around my banana plants because members over at the banana forum that I belong to have said that their chickens peck at the banana plants. The book I have on raising chickens actually listed Datura stramonium as the deadly plant to chickens, but I figured that the authors didn't know enough to include brugmansias with that as they often lump in brugmansias with daturas even though they are different plants.

It turns out that there is a bigger predator around here to my baby chicks. I lost a chick to a red-tailed hawk the other day. I have been so distraught. I was in the house and heard the commotion but didn't see anything by the time I got outside other than a few chicks had escaped through a very small opening in the side. I had put chicken wire around the temporary veggie bed and not over the top. I had no idea that a hawk would swoop down and take one of my babies. When I went to bring them inside later that afternoon, I saw a hawk nearby, and later, I saw two hawks circling above. Anyway, they took my little Anabelle, and I am beside myself with grief. I should have protected her better. We are now in the middle of building a large coop and run for the chickens, and it will be covered with fencing and completely enclosed to protect them from predators. All free-ranging activity will have to be closely monitored because there is a nesting pair of red-tailed hawks living closeby.

This was Anabelle: