Hawks! How can I keep the hawks away from my chickens?

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After losing over 18 chickens to hawks, raccoons, and foxes - I decided drop some coin into electrified netting, as well as heavy gauge overhead netting to enclose my coop.
Outside of my coop, I made a fenced in area from the 5' rolls of black plastic netting from Tractor Supply (which is light and very strong), and let them out to graze only when I am out there with them.
I live in Newnan just outside of Atlanta, and hawks and predators are everywhere. I would recommend keeping them locked up in a secure coop and only letting them out when you can keep an eye on them. I think that is going to be your best bet at keeping them alive.
 
Plants are a great protection for chickens. The thicker the leaves or the thornier the bush all the better. I had an old climbing rose bush and my first 3 chickens loved to sit under it as shade and protection from the aerial predators. Don't bother with planting a tree since it will attract hawks, raccoons, unwanted wild birds that will eat your chicken feed, but instead opt for some sort of thorny or evergreen bushes -- they will look nice and cover more area than one large messy shedding tree. 6 of us adjoining neighbors got rid of our old trees completely and we've had less problems with squirrels, raccoons, possums, rats, hawks, or wild bird nests. JMHO.
Great advice! Thank you so much!
 
We see hawks and eagles picking up mice and rabbits from a field out back. Really worries me when it's time to put my chickens outside.

I've had between 3 to 5 backyard hens at a time over the last seven years. We have a smaller cottage backyard and found it easy to put up a pop-up canopy, 5 large doghouses picked up on trash days or in thrift stores, plastic lawn furniture and tables, tall trash bins, a compost recycle bin, potted plants, rose bushes, and rosemary plants for our hens to hide/snooze under. For a large open area I would suggest you get generous with a lot of scattered lawn furniture, benches, low lean-to's, several recycled doghouses and plant some inexpensive rose bushes around the open field areas -- all to give hens a lot of places to dash under if a hawk flies overhead. The hawks want a nice flying start in an open yard to chase after running hens.

The less open area for hens to run around, the safer it is. Again, not always a 100% guarantee that a hen is completely safe but the smart hens know how to hide and hawks don't seem to want to engage in battle on the soil -- they prefer a flying aerial catch using their talons. Obstruct open flying spaces with bushes, lawn furniture, dog houses, canopies, low lean-to shelters, etc etc to give the hens their best chance for survival.

A pop-up canopy is nice for shade. We bury our canopy legs about 6 inches into the ground so it doesn't parasail away in the breeze.

I've had free-range backyard hens for 7 years including Silkies that can't fly and none have been taken by our Cooper's Hawks that sit on our fence or lawn furniture to watch our girls. None of the hawks have ever engaged in ground battle with our hiding hens even if they can see them 5 feet away! The hawks will sit on our house or patio roofs or sit on the lawn furniture or backyard fence and stare at the hiding hens but never have engaged in battle with them. We had one stupid hawk, probably a young one, that flew into our coop kennel wall and knocked itself out while our hens were hiding down below. As long as there are rats, mice, or bunnies around, there's no way to keep hawks away. We live near a freeway where there's a lot of trees and foliage for the Cooper's Hawks to nest in and raise their offspring with a lot of rodents for them to catch as food. There's no way we can keep those hawks from eyeing our hens too but our girls have been safe to evade captures.

In the past we've used leftover plywood planks and cinderblocks to raise the wood about 1-1/2 feet above the ground so the hens can hide underneath. On trash days we always watch lawn trash to see if we can recycle anything from people's lawns like old doghouses, wood planks, we once rescued a wood headboard and made a lean-to out of it. Our contractors left a couple long scaffolding planks while remodeling our house so we set the planks on cinder blocks for the hens to hide under. We got very creative once we got hens LOL!
 
After losing over 18 chickens to hawks, raccoons, and foxes - I decided drop some coin into electrified netting, as well as heavy gauge overhead netting to enclose my coop.
Outside of my coop, I made a fenced in area from the 5' rolls of black plastic netting from Tractor Supply (which is light and very strong), and let them out to graze only when I am out there with them.
I live in Newnan just outside of Atlanta, and hawks and predators are everywhere. I would recommend keeping them locked up in a secure coop and only letting them out when you can keep an eye on them. I think that is going to be your best bet at keeping them alive.

Spring is the worst time of year for hawks in our area. I was so nervous when we got our first two chickens -- two little fluffy bantam Silkies that can't fly. We never let them out of their little 4x6 coop pen unless we were watching them. But we quickly found that it is very unnatural not to allow chickens a day of foraging, eating grass/weeds, dust-bathing, catching bugs, sun-bathing, exploring, etc etc etc. So we started letting them out for a couple hours each day inside a circle of rabbit fencing with bird netting over the top.

As a month went by we let them completely free-range on their own and saw that they knew how to hide under the rose bush when a Cooper's Hawk came into the yard. That was our first clue to start using plants and other shelters for the chickens to hide under and that the hawks did not engage battle on the ground. Hawks seem to prefer aerial catches using talons on running hens so we started putting up a lot of shelters around the yard including a pop-up canopy.

Spring is the worst time of year for hawks because that's their breeding season and there will always be young hawks coming around. We love our Crow murders (Crow flocks are called "murders") in the neighborhood because Crows gang up on hawks to chase them off yet Crows leave our adult hens alone. I wouldn't trust Crows around baby poultry but Crows seem to leave the adult chickens alone.

Only because it worked for us, I recommend using a lot of scattered shelters around open spaces to allow chickens places to snooze/hide inside for safety. We're always on the lookout on trash days to recycle people's trashed dog houses, leftover lumber, etc etc etc to construct low shelters for our hens. So far, we haven't lost a bantam or standard hen in 7 years free-ranging.
 
In one of my posts about Squawk, she escaped the red tail hawk then this past February I lost her to a coyote, we haven't had coyotes around the neighborhood in 3-4 years. I let the chickens out for awhile free range, a couple hours latter the four remaining hens came to the backdoor clucking real loud. I ran up the hill to check out a coyote with hen in his mouth. He dropped the poor hen with a broken neck. Just a minute sooner I could have possibly saved Squawk, I quickly buried her next to her buddy. Sure enough he came back looking for the hen. All I had was a shovel, the coyote was on the other side of the chain link fence. I moved toward him threatening him with my shovel, yelling at him, he eventually left. The four hens still free range with supervision.
 
To prevent further attacks have gotten 4 Predator Guard units, these have two red LEDs instead of one like the Night Guard has. Also have an AM radio set to talk radio to provide human voices at night.
 

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