AAAH! We had our first hawk!

[gottsegnet]

Took the chicks out to enjoy the spring weather and then saw a hawk playing in the breeze not 100 feet from their outdoor pen. Their outdoor pen is designed only to keep them in and the hens out since we and the dogs are always nearby when they're out.

Fortunately, the hawk seemed totally uninterested. It was rising on a thermal, diving and then catching the thermal to shoot back up in the air again. It was, however, much more fascinating to watch once the chicks were safely caught and placed back in the garage!

It's the closest we've ever seen a hawk to our property. They're all around (We've even seen two bald eagles less than a mile away!), but we have a murder of crows that roosts 1/4 mile from the house and they hang out in the field just west of us, collecting the left over corn. I know a lot of people try to attract them, but how do you attract them to protect your chickens and still keep them out of your garden?

We had at least 200 crows the day before the snow hit!

Anyway, working on chicken tractors so hopefully the site of a hawk won't give me any more heart attacks. I really do love watching them. Or did before I had chickens!

 

[ChickenToes]

We have hawks, owls, and eagles around our property as well. About the only thing you can hope for is that they stay uninterested in your chickens. I don't think there is a way to get them to 'protect' your birds. They will look at them as an easy meal in the colder months of the year when food is harder to find. In the warmer weather they are more likely to leave them alone. The only duck we've ever lost was killed by an owl in late fall, when food was scarce.

 

[Skippin' Sammi]

Quote:
I don't even have my chicks yet but have a plan to use a large plastic Crow that was used as a Halloween/Fall decoration in the yard to try to scare away the mated pair of Redtail Hawks, Bald Eagles and Barred Owls that we have nearby. I will place it on a fence post near the chicken run and post if it is successful. The Redtails worry me the most.

 

[gottsegnet]

Plastic crow...that's a cool idea! At our old house, the hawks sat on a light pole and watched the chickens, but they were always safe in their coop or tractor since we were in a more suburban area. That tractor wasn't much, also designed to keep birds in more than predators out, but the hawks never did anything other than watch.

Here, we let them out and have only put up a ring of chicken wire for the chicks.

We're right on a pretty major flyway for hawks and eagles, so I had expected to see more of them. But they don't seem to hang out here where all the crows are! See them all the time when driving, though.

 

[Southpaw970]

We have a couple of hawks and an owl that live on our property. I see the hawks going after squirrels in our yard all the time.

 

[gottsegnet]

Quote:
It was the crows I was looking at as a sort of protection. Not the hawks! We have an insane amount of voles, so I'm thinking maybe the hawks won't be so bad once we're finished with our chicken tractors if they decide to start scoping our property.

 

[CodyDunn]

Skippin' Sammi :

Quote:
I don't even have my chicks yet but have a plan to use a large plastic Crow that was used as a Halloween/Fall decoration in the yard to try to scare away the mated pair of Redtail Hawks, Bald Eagles and Barred Owls that we have nearby. I will place it on a fence post near the chicken run and post if it is successful. The Redtails worry me the most.

Did you know there are fake owls made exactly for this reason? It helps to scare unwanted ground animals and small birds, because you fill it and secure it to something and it's head bobbles. With those big eyes it looks real! I wouldn't put it where this chickens can see it, but I believe predatory birds are territorial, and don't like being watched, this would be a likely deterrent. I need to get one as well to try! Hawks and owls don't really do much meshing together so it should help.​

 

[City Gardener]

We had a hawk attack on MLK Day. We were alerted to it because two of our hens came to our backdoor frantically clucking to be let in. When I tried to shoo them away, they wouldn't stop trying to run inside the door, and I finally -duh! - realized something was going on.

Luckily I was home with the kids - -no school -- and we looked outside and saw a hawk apparantly eating one of our hens. I ran outside and the hawk flew away -- and the hen jumped up and ran and hid.

This is her about half an hour later -- she lost the majority of her wing feathers, but was otherwise okay!

We stopped letting them free range in our back yard after that.

 

[TeriNick50]

@City Gardener:
Great looking birds despite the feather loss!
We had a hawk scare last month too and have become much more cautious about letting the girls free range.
Now that the snow has melted, they're eager to be out of the pen but we're going to wait until the trees show some leaves before letting the hens roam around the yard unsupervised.

 

[gottsegnet]

Quote:
Wow! So happy she survived. Still pretty good looking, even missing some feathers! I love letting our girls out, but I knew it wouldn't be too long, anyway. They spend most of their time in a hedge or in the barn where they take lots of dust baths and they're probably pretty safe in either of those places.

Interestingly, they spend more time away from cover when I'm out in the garden working. I don't know if they're just sort of hoping I'll have some leftover oatmeal in my pocket, or what, but they come out in the middle of the back yard which is wide open with no cover and just scratch around.