Brave Hawk!

[KristinMarie]

I was sitting at a stone table in my flower garden today, letting my 13 turkey poults (7 1/2 weeks old) get some outside time. I don't let them free range yet, like my 65 chickens do, because they are still young. Several of them were under the bench I was sitting on and the others were at arm's reach. I was bending down and talking to a sweet little blue slate, when a flash of brown flew by my face and I was suddenly looking down at a blob of brown feathers where my poult was. A foot and a half from my face was a hawk, who has landed on top of my poult. I commenced to yelling at it, which caused it to simply turn and look at me like it was saying "what is all that racket about?!". I swung a bottle that I had a candle in at it, afraid to do too much damage because I didn't want to hurt my turkey baby. It flew away and left my baby there, unharmed. They all ran back to the brooder and I put them back, but now I'm afraid to let them out at all, not to mention being worried about the chickens who are always out during the day. I know hawks are a threat but I have NEVER heard of a hawk being brave enough to swoop in that close to a person. It was fearless! Has anyone else seen a hawk do anything like that? Surely it isn't starving because we have had plenty of rain and great weather. Perhaps it is young and stupid? I know it is illegal to kill hawks, and being an environmental biology grad student, I really don't want to harm a threatened species, but I have to protect my flock! Only, how do you protect against something that isn't there, until suddenly, it is?I know the answer is probably going to be to keep the birds locked up, but that isn't an option. Any other ideas?

 

[wvtim]

Where are you located ?

 

[KristinMarie]

Mississippi

 

[wvtim]

Do you do head count every night when you lock your chickens in the coop? I can guarntee you that the hawk you saw today will be back. So you have a decision to make. Either protect them from predators with netting or fence them in or a 12 gauge. You will start noticing your chickens disappear one by one with little sign. Even a small coppers hawk will kill a full grown hen.

 

[KristinMarie]

Yes, I do a head count every night. I believe that it was a red-tailed hawk, although much smaller than most. It must be a juvenile. The problem with something that is on the top of the food chain is that there isn't really anything you can use to deter it. Such a stealthy predator causes another problem. I can hear it sometimes but I never saw it until today, when it was standing on top of my turkey. I didn't even see it before or after that. It was there, I swung something at it, and then poof, it was gone again. They are really impressive birds. According to my classes, they can see a rabbit sized animal from about a mile away. No sneaking up on them. I have an issue with it trying to eat my birds, though. It needs to go eat a rabbit! Hmmm... come to think of it. I dont think I've seen a wild rabbit the whole 3 years I've lived here though...