Should I worry about vultures?

[krapnet]

I live in an area surrounded by the woods and a lake. There are a lot of vultures around this time, should I worry about them?

 

[centrarchid]

I have never had problems with them. As a kid we had turkey vulture come in to consume hog carcasses and chickens free-ranged around them without incident. Black vultures might be different but they would have trouble anything that was not a very small chick or not otherwise in very poor health.

 

[Noobchick]

Yes, you should be concerned if the vultures you have around are black vultures. (Black vultures have a black head, turkey vultures have a red head.)

Turkey vultures won't attack live animals but black vultures will. One attacked my flock yesterday and managed to get hold of one of my hens. It was holding her down and ripping out her neck feathers when I ran outside. Thankfully, it flew off as soon as it saw me. But I'm going to have to be super watchful now. Don't know why I'd be having a problem now: there are a lot of dead deer around, you'd think they'd go for that.