AHHHHHHHH! HAWK! AHHHHHHH!

[lizardz]

Oh, Suz,
How frightening! I'm so glad everyone is okay - I worry about this, too. We have all kinds of hawks in our area - Cooper's, Red Tail, we even have a couple of Gosshawks which nested right next to my parent's house last year, and I've seen Osprey on occassion. Any of them are capable of taking a chicken, most of them could carry one off even. It's a good idea to keep them in until you get something rigged together to help protect them. For now, sit down, take some slow, deep breathes, then pour yourself a good shot of tequila - I mean soothing cup of tea!
Liz

 

[SpottedCrow]

Been there done that too...I saw a brown bird and I was like What is Penny doing on the fence? And then I realized that unless Penny was doing steroids, that wasn't her!!!

I had a juvenile Redtailed Hawk sitting on my fence waiting for Obelisk to come out for dinner. Penny blended in with the dried leaves and he couldn't see her, but Obelisk, being black, stuck out like a sore thumb. I went tearing out of the back porch and scared him off, but he went back through the yard almost taking DH's head off. Then a couple of days later, I went to open the front door to let DH in the house and the redtail's sitting on the branch where my bird feeder is!

He wasn't even 10 feet away from us.

 

[Renegade]

The Guineas keep them away ? Very interesting

I was working in the yard one day a few weeks ago when I saw a hawk land on one of my fence posts. My guinea hens started screaming and as a group charged the hawk and chased it off. I have a large group of 25 guineas so they tend to be very brave as a group. I know some people have had a few problems with small groups being aggressive towards their chickens. I haven't had any problems with this. If anything my roosters are aggressive towards the guineas.

Donna

 

[TxChiknRanchers]

Never heard of that. Of course there are a lot of things I haven't heard of.

Good luck with the guineas !

 

[ozark hen]

Wow, Donna, I am impressed with your guineas!! I have seven here and so far no losses to hawks but I was thinking it might happen after the trees lost their leaves. I sure hope my guineas keep away the hawks. I have seen a pair of red tails circling low over the chicken run...my chickens don't use the chicken run...they free range but there is a run there. But so far...we have been lucky! I did lose one the first part of summer to a possum that got into the coop just as they were going in to roost. If I had arrived two minutes or so earlier it wouldn't have happened. Now I try to be there when they go to roost, which is hard since some go early and with dusk changing nightly.

 

[jjthink]

Yikes - I'm glad everybody is okay!!!

I saw this post after a harrowing day of hearing what I'm certain was a hawk and then a friend saw it pretty low in a spruce tree close to free ranging BJ roo and hen Annie (he wasn't sure what kind it was, only that it was big and a hawk). I put BJ and Annie in lockdown for a little while, only letting them out later on when I could watch them - I didn't see or hear trouble from that point on but I worry that a hawk has a fix on them and will return. I have a lot of trees but that doesn't seem to have completely camoflaged them,,,,and now the leaves are falling.

I had been hearing that sound a lot in recent days - somewhere in the trees in my yard - but not seeing anything. I usually have to be at work and can't watch BJ and Annie like a hawk and yet they go crazy cooped up in their run. And now it will be getting dark early...hard to get home in time to give them
supervised outings...UGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Unfortunately can't add guineas!

Good luck to you and I hope our respective hawks take a hike.
JJ

 

[chicknmania]

fyi, there is no hawk big enough to carry off a cat or a Jack Russel terrier; and they wouldn't try to. A Great Horned owl, might, if it was hungry enough, try to grab a small cat. Hawks and owls primaily eat rodents, small birds or small poultry, frogs. In the case of a cat, I would suspect a wild dog, or maybe a coyote. If you're trying to deter the hawk, try some bottle rockets aimed into the sky in it's general direction, when you see it around. Our chickens have a lot of hawk sense; they know to hide when they see one, and we have actually seen them listen and pay attention to what the wild birds do when there is a hawk around, and they will hide when the wild birds do. We've had a hawk around here, too. Hawk attacks are most prevalent with chickens in the fall; August - October. Keeping the chickens penned up for a week or so works, too...the hawk will get discouraged and leave.

 

[jeaucamom]

Well, after $178. at the hardware store I have 150 ft of 7ft chicken wire, 7ft x 200 ft deer netting and posts and a post pounder. Guess what I am doing tomorrow???? If I take one of the panels off my coop I can saw a pop hole for them then they will have a run about 20 x 70 or so. Not exactly sure how I will get in and out of it??? Boy having a DH or DB at this point would pay off big. I hate being a helpless female. Ugh,.... what a day.

 

[ozark hen]

I, personally saw my toy poodle carried off by a hawk one winter. I was devastated! Poodle was about 4 pounds.
jeaucamom-you can do it. I don't know how tall you are but if you are short like me it would be a great help if you could stand on something stable to drive those posts in. You will need the upper leverage to drive them or you will wear yourself out in no time at all! It is very rocky here and it took me forever to drive one five foot post. The post hole driver is heavy and hard to get up over the post if you aren't standing on something. Good luck to you!

 

[jjthink]

Ozark hen, I am so sorry about your little poodle - how tragic and heartbreaking. Such a cruel planet sometimes. JJ