Hawks are eating my birds

I have read that Cooper's hawks hunt in pairs, they are worse in fall and spring migration, they mostly eat birds. It has been suggested not to hang feeders b/c the feeders attract the food they want and guess what-easy prey.I do not know if any of it is true but I have seen them hunt in pairs and I have removed all feeders from my yard.

I am so glad to have this forum, I am getting my coop ready and have a nesting pair of Bald Eagles on my property, if I cover the run with deer netting will this deter the eagles? I am also thinking about putting up a human like scarecrow, next to their run, any thoughts?

Now I'm worried about my chickens and ducks since I tore down the run to allow my chickens free range. I fenced off half the back yard and my 2 chicken coops, 2 duck houses and small barn for the goats are all inside a fenced area and everything free ranges together.. but they all get locked inside at night. During the day, my dog is on her trolley on the other side of the fence.

I wanted to allow my ducks and goats free range 24/7.. will hawks try to eat them? My call duck's house is fenced off with 3ft hardware cloth cause she's blind, but nothing covering it.. Been a couple months and so far, no problems.

There's no way I can cover this area.. it's too big to do with little $$ available for that....no way I can put a roof over roughly 50ft x 60ft. I'm gonna go hang some cds or dvds everywhere tomorrow.. I have a couple fake crows somewhere too.. time to buy some more bird feeders too, lol.. I never see birds in the backyard.. plenty out front, but never in the back.

I'm gonna try the red eyes trick too.. Maybe buy several shiny red dots and stick them on things all over the place like little eyes

thanks for all this input I am going to string fishing line over my run it is under tall pines and unless the hawk is in the trees he/she cant see my birds...but if he is in the trees and dives down, I think the line will work.

hcppam: It has worked wonders for me! I hate keeping my chickens locked up but when the hawks are hunting, at least they can't or don't get into my pens anymore. The fishing line trick is awesome!

I know from personal experience that the Cooper's hawks will try for chickens; however, the only one I've seen try for ours was a juvenile, and he eventually gave up. The roosters would see him and give a yell, I'd come bolting out, the hawk would leave . . . I gave him a bad scare twice when he was bouncing around trying to grab a hen hiding underneath a tree branch on the ground, and I think having this lunatic human charging after him shouting really put him off his lunch.

When one of our trees drops a branch, I lug it into the chicken yard and set it up so that it creates a hiding place for the chickens. Having a place to hide from aerial attack has saved some of our chickens. They also spend a lot of time hanging out underneath a mulberry tree; I think they know that the hawks are out there. Our roos are very noisy about hawks, although I have yet to see one go after a hawk.

The string-grid idea is a great one, and if we start having more hawk issues I will use grids to create no-fly zones for the hawks. The hens range in a very large yard that would be nearly impossible to roof, even with a grid, but it would be much easier to create hide zones for them all around the yard.

Knowing what kind of hawk you're dealing with makes a big difference. Coopies are bird-eaters, so they're a risk; they're also nimble as all heck in the air because they hunt by chasing birds through tree branches. I have had a Coopie get into a chicken run that was entirely walled and roofed with chicken wire, and to this day I don't know how the little bugger did it. (When he realized that he was trapped in there, though, he was so upset that he didn't get any birds. We had a perfectly lovely time peeling his hysterical self off the wire that night and releasing him.) Red-shouldered hawks seem less interested in chickens, although all bets are off with chicks and bantams: a red-shoulder is pretty small and would have a heck of a time carrying off a large fowl, but might try for something it could carry. Red-shoulders are also territorial, and will gang up on redtails. Red-tailed hawks are big enough to be a potential threat to chickens. Great-horned owls are a real bear; I've had them try for our peafowl, but they bounced right off the Top-Flight netting. <evil grin>

In our yard, I have seen red-shoulders, redtails, Coopies, American kestrels, a sharp-shinned hawk, white-tailed kites, a prairie falcon, great-horns, and barn owls. Of these, only the Coopie has tried for the chickens, and he was a juvenile. There's plenty of local prey that aren't chickens, and the adult hawks around here seem to know better than to mess with them. It's just the juvies that are hungry enough, and inexperienced enough, to make a try for it.

I have netting above my coop and run. We had to close it in a few times after a very determined hawk sussed out the big holes and got a couple more of our chicks. It was incredibly frustrating, but we finally reinforced the netting enough that it got tangled up and flew away.

If I was free ranging (not possible where I live), I'd get a couple of tom turkeys. After the first attack, I considered getting a tom, but changed my mind when I figured out we'd have a make a whole new coop and run for one.

Shiny things spinning, fake owls, etc. had little effect on the hawks in my area. As said above, bird feeders work. I put up wild bird and hummingbird feeders and between the wild birds and crows, any hawk coming in too close gets a mauling. I love to watch the little birds chase the big hawk. Then the crows are attracted to the scene and they join in!!