We also live on a largely wooded 4 acre property. The chickens are great at keeping the bug population down, but we have a somewhat open backyard. Most of the hawk attacks (red-tailed in my case, though I've also had Peregrine falcons pass through and wreak havoc) happen when they go from...
I agree. I've never had any hawks or other wild animals go after my why white Leghorns either. The only thing I've ever had kill a white chicken was an untrained bird dog. Learned she needed to be on a leash or the chickens in the run pretty quickly.
In my experience, the color doesn't matter so much as size. My small Easter eggers were the first to go. After that it was whatever hen got separated from the rest. I have a red tailed hawk targeting mine. The only solution seems to be not to free range them
I've had chickens on and off for about four years now, and I currently have five hens. The flock's a mixture of breeds including a barred rock, golden wyandotte, rhode island and two reds of unknown origin. I've used BYC for information in the past, but finally decided to join the community...