A hawk has been trying to make one of my chickens its dinner...

[Chido]

How can I discourage this hawk from keep trying to eat one of my chickens. we put a wire fence next to the trees in the backyard to keep the cickens and their coop there, but because of the trees, we can't add a net to cover the run.the hawk is not too big from what I could see, it landed on one of my gamey mutt pullets once and I managed to scare it way, and I would say the hawk is abut the size of a 3 pound game chicken. We have a standard brahma cockerel who has been awesome at sounding the alarm when he sees that bird, but this hawk has been really annoying this week, and I don't know what to do to scare it so it goes away for awhile.

 

[SilkieBantams]

Keep them locked in the coop for awhile since free range chickens are an open buffet signal to hawks. The hawk will find food elsewhere.

 

[Carolyn]

Hawks will kill a chicken, eat part of it and leave it on the ground if the chickens are too big to carry off. They will come back later to finish the meal. They will also enter the coop to kill chickens. (I only know these things from experience unfortunately.) They are worse at times than others, for me they are worst in the winter months.

If I am aware of hawks near the coop I put my chickens up in the run for a few days (I have a covered run attached to their house inside an electric fence with large trees and bushes in the larger chicken yard). Sometimes that takes care of the problem. I live in the country and my chicken yard is not visible from the road so since I could not cover with netting I strung a cord from tree to tree and tied on pie pans, CD's etc, that seemed to help. My chickens seem to find plenty of hiding places when they are free ranging so I make sure there are hidy places in the pen also.

I make friends with the neighborhood birds, namely blue jays and crows because they will chase a hawk away. You can also shoot to miss when one is around and that seems to help. Illegal to kill them in most states now.

I visited a farm in Alaska and they took an old fishing net (big one) and covered the entire pen securing it to a large pole in the center. They contend with eagles as well and it looked like the most secure set up I have seen but I don't have the set up for netting the entire top either.

Good luck. Raising chickens would always be fun except for predators, illness, mean roos and butchering day but then were would the challenge be.

 

[Oregon Blues]

Either lock the birds up or put a net over their run. Nothing else works.