Baby recovering from hawk wounds has tail down

scorcher36 · Jun 3, 2016

Our baby chick about 8 weeks old is recovering from a hawk attack. We were outside while the babies were getting a little time outside of the nursery when a hawk came down and tried to grab a baby. Minor puncture wound and broken foot but she is doing great recovering from those injuries. We are keeping her inside for now while she fully recovers and bringing her outside for supervised exercise and dust baths. Today she has had her tail down most of the day. She is eating drinking and very active outside. Poop is normal chirping normal. Is this something to be concerned about?

Eggcessive · Jun 4, 2016

Welcome to BYC. She may have suffered an injury to her tail, but she more likely is just doing that because she feels sore or still scared.. Her being alert, active, and eating are very good signs. It can be tough with small birds since the hawks will go for them first. Once they get larger, the hawks don't pose quite as much of a problem. We have hawks around daily here with my chickens free ranging. Our rooster does the alarm call to get under cover, and we usually know to go outside and scare them off. Having one or two pine trees they can hide under can help.

scorcher36 · Jun 4, 2016

Thank you! Scared and sore makes sense. It has been about 2 weeks since the hawk incident and we kept her pretty contained inside for most of that. It has only been the last few days we have been bringing her outside a few times a day to get sunshine and do her general chicken business. She's still learning to walk with her bum leg but it's getting stronger. I can see how she would be a bit sore though from the exercise. Thanks for the input!

Baby recovering from hawk wounds has tail down

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