Hawk Attack - Debrief/Discussion/Help

[lavenderforluck]

When Britons and europeans say "hawk" they mean an accipiter. A goshawk is the biggest one.

Our most common "hawk" in the Americas is a red-tailed hawk. You'd call it a buzzard. A giant death buzzard as she is significantly bigger than a Common Buzzard, and her feet are comparatively huge -- she takes bigger prey. Red-tails are about twice as heavy as goshawks, but slower and not as bold.

A red-tail still isn't big enough to carry a chicken off. She still only weighs four pounds. She can kill a chicken and might drag it into cover but probably won't, dragging things into cover is a goshawk-ish sort of behavior, a red-tail usually eats in the open.

We have larger hawks than that, ones that would be classed as booted eagles in the old world, but they are not in Virginia.

My guess is that these are the feathers of a broad-winged hawk, Buteo platypterus, a middling crow-sized bird with small feet. It seems the rooster beat the snot out of her, and I expect she will go back to hunting the small rodents she's adapted to take. But what happened to the rooster after, I can't guess.

I can’t find a perfect feather ID match but I agree a broad-winged hawk makes sense or possibly a Cooper’s hawk? I appreciate your detailed response! The mystery continues as to what happened to our poor guy.

 

[GCrumb]

I can’t find a perfect feather ID match but I agree a broad-winged hawk makes sense or possibly a Cooper’s hawk? I appreciate your detailed response! The mystery continues as to what happened to our poor guy.

Yeah, I can't find a great match either. They could be a juvenile red-tail, red-tails are very variable. A cooper's would have more bars. They're also about crow-sized, but have big long-toed feet, are adapted to hunting birds. Like other accipiters they are bold and more willing to take on too-large prey, so it makes more sense to me than a broad-wing, behaviorally. But a kind of hawk that never likes to fly below forest canopy and generally seems to hate having anything overhead will sometimes do some mad thing like dive through a pop-hole and into a three-foot-tall duck house. There are more things in heaven and earth...

I hope your roo shows up.

 

[BastyPutt]

This certainly is a mystery.

For awhile we had an owl here and some sneaky hens that decided to roost in trees without us knowing - until we found them dead. He was a very large owl, and was able to carry away the chickens. I believe it killed 4 and carried away all but one - all hens.

Admittedly I didn't thoroughly read all the posts, I will say that the piles of feathers are usually where the predator began to eat the chicken. They don't seem to lose a bunch in the actual fighting process - although some.

Perhaps something else came and took him away after the hawk had finished? I am sorry if I seen insensitive, I know that he obviously was important to you - just stirring the think tank a bit.

 

[BastyPutt]

Unfortunately after 4 years we had our first hawk attack. Thankfully only one hen has a minor injury and missing feathers (its been tended to and we think she will make a full recovery), but our very loved rooster is missing. We didn't witness the attack and unfortunately didn't capture it on camera so while it would be speculation, I'm looking for some possible support and discussion.

Based on her injury and feather evidence the hawk attacked one of our Marans then our large Black Copper Marans rooster stepped in and attacked the hawk (significant hawk feathers). Where the hawk feathers are - there are zero feathers from our rooster which led us to believe he put up a good fight. However, further back on our tree line there was a very small pile of feathers of his and a trail of a few up our fence line and then another small scattering under our large tree in front yard.

Given he is missing and the feather evidence we suspect the hawk did manage to injure or kill him and take him but here is where we're a bit lost - our rooster was large (7+lbs - possibly upwards of 9lbs). We live east of Richmond, VA and have seen hawks but none large enough to fly away with a 7-9lb bird. This doesn't mean it didn't happen. We've search high and low for him or his remains or additional feather trails, but nothing. Unfortunately nothing was seen by our neighbors. Have you seen medium, even large-sized hawks carry off large roosters? I included a picture of him from about a year ago - he was a bit larger than the image.

We're keeping the girls in their run and coop for a few weeks and will only let them out when we're both outside as well as our dog from this point moving forward. We will also be expanding our run and putting up some hawk deterrents. This is our first predator attack and like many folks here we're very sad especially not knowing if our rooster is out there somewhere injured. We are grateful he defended and saved his girls.

I did also want to add that once a raptor gets a chicken like this, and sees the potential, it is really hard to get rid of them. The owl in question actually made a nest in a large ponderosa about 150 feet from our coop. He never got another after we made sure everyone was in at night, but my kids were scared to death for months to go outside at night.

 

[Shadrach]

When Britons and europeans say "hawk" they mean an accipiter. A goshawk is the biggest one.

Our most common "hawk" in the Americas is a red-tailed hawk. You'd call it a buzzard. A giant death buzzard as she is significantly bigger than a Common Buzzard, and her feet are comparatively huge -- she takes bigger prey. Red-tails are about twice as heavy as goshawks, but slower and not as bold.

A red-tail still isn't big enough to carry a chicken off. She still only weighs four pounds. She can kill a chicken and might drag it into cover but probably won't, dragging things into cover is a goshawk-ish sort of behavior, a red-tail usually eats in the open.

We have larger hawks than that, ones that would be classed as booted eagles in the old world, but they are not in Virginia.

My guess is that these are the feathers of a broad-winged hawk, Buteo platypterus, a middling crow-sized bird with small feet. It seems the rooster beat the snot out of her, and I expect she will go back to hunting the small rodents she's adapted to take. But what happened to the rooster after, I can't guess.

Thanks.
Being British and knowing about keeping chickens in the UK and Europe can be a bit of a problem when it comes to both language and breeds when responding to posts from the US.
The Red Tailed Hawk we would commonly call a Buzzard.
Most Southern European buzzards are carrion eaters rather than hunters as such. They did occasionally attempt a strike on a chicken in Catalonia and will carry their prey but usually due to their size and lack of mobility in woodlands and bush cover they were not much of a concern for the free ranging chicken.

 

[Geena]

I can’t find a perfect feather ID match but I agree a broad-winged hawk makes sense or possibly a Cooper’s hawk? I appreciate your detailed response! The mystery continues as to what happened to our poor guy.

They don't look like any hawk or owl feathers I've ever seen. My first thought was that they look like chicken feathers. Are you sure they're not from one of your girls? Maybe the rooster tried to save a hen from a fox and then got taken instead? The trail of feathers is typical of a fox chasing down a chicken.

 

[lavenderforluck]

This certainly is a mystery.

For awhile we had an owl here and some sneaky hens that decided to roost in trees without us knowing - until we found them dead. He was a very large owl, and was able to carry away the chickens. I believe it killed 4 and carried away all but one - all hens.

Admittedly I didn't thoroughly read all the posts, I will say that the piles of feathers are usually where the predator began to eat the chicken. They don't seem to lose a bunch in the actual fighting process - although some.

Perhaps something else came and took him away after the hawk had finished? I am sorry if I seen insensitive, I know that he obviously was important to you - just stirring the think tank a bit.

Our current theory is exactly this - something heard the attack (likely a fox) and unfortunately killed and took him post-attack.

 

[lavenderforluck]

They don't look like any hawk or owl feathers I've ever seen. My first thought was that they look like chicken feathers. Are you sure they're not from one of your girls? Maybe the rooster tried to save a hen from a fox and then got taken instead? The trail of feathers is typical of a fox chasing down a chicken.

It’s definitely not from any of our chickens - but it’s interesting we haven’t been able to identify the feathers either! The injury to our BCM hen who was attacked first seems very much like from a hawk or other raptor. There was a pile of her feathers and then this other pile of feathers shown that didn’t belong to any chicken. Then our roosters feathers were found trailing fence and up under our magnolia. Current theory is fox heard the original attack and took rooster post (or during) hawk/raptor attack and hens were hiding well in their coop.

We have a large coop and run so the girls are no longer free ranging unless we’re all outside including our dog who protects the flock.

 

[lavenderforluck]

I did also want to add that once a raptor gets a chicken like this, and sees the potential, it is really hard to get rid of them. The owl in question actually made a nest in a large ponderosa about 150 feet from our coop. He never got another after we made sure everyone was in at night, but my kids were scared to death for months to go outside at night.

We put up trail cameras to see if anything lingers about. So far no hawk, other raptor or fox sightings interestingly. Our girls are being kept in their coop and run unless there’s heavy supervision by ourselves and dog while gardening. They’re not happy about it but it’s been than being attacked by something.

 

[lavenderforluck]

Well we have an update. Unfortunately we never located our poor rooster but a red fox came over our fence through our lawn today.

So we’re now sure there was an aerial attack by still unidentified bird of prey. Rooster fought off bird but the commotion was heard by a fox and it took him over fence. Heartbreaking we weren’t outside at that moment to save him - I feel awful but he saved all of the hens. No more free ranging unfortunately. Time to expand the run! Thanks for everyone’s comments and if anyone can ID the original non-chicken feathers I’d be interested to know!