- Mar 24, 2012
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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?