My wife has an answer for the Hawk concern as well. Apparently the only animal that can take on a Hawk is a crow, so Hawks do not mess with Crows at all. So if you get a few black chickens, they will mistake them as crows and avoid the flock. We have many Hawks flying above, we have several variations of chicken's species 4 are black. So far for 2 years now, no hawk attack's (Knock on wood). Fresh eggs are amazing, big difference than those from the store.