Anyone have hawks IGNORING their chickens?

[elizabethlongwood]

My neighbor has a red-shouldered hawk's nest in their oak tree. I've seen the mom and dad hawks flying over my yard, but they haven't noticed my chickens yet. We have some twine criss-crossed over the chicken yard, and CDs hanging to deter them and plenty of small trees and shrubs that the chickens rest under most of the day. Does anyone else have a constant hawk presence near them without any being killed? Everything I've read on this forum makes me think it's just a matter of time before my chickens are goners, and it isn't possible to cover our chicken yard without cutting down trees.

 

[beachchickie]

Personally, I don't worry about the red tails and shouldered as much as the Coopers. The Coopers main diet is other birds. The main diet of the red tails and shouldered is rodents. They don't tend to go after the chickens unless the others are slim pickings.

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

I have a Cooper's hawk that visits daily and often stands on top of the coop. My birds roam the yard all day and are often seemingly oblivious to the hawk. Sometimes though, the hawk will swoop through and frighten them. At first it worried me to have it out there, now I'm glad to have it visit. It will take sparrows, doves, mice and, unfortunately, lizards right there in front of me and the chickens. I know it's in the yard when I go outside and there are no wild birds around and that means I'm not losing food to them. It sounds like Cooper's in the Southwest don't take chickens very often, but they might be larger in the Southeast and therefore more likely to take a chicken, I don't know. I haven't heard much on BYC about red-shouldered hawks and how they are around chickens.

 

[centrarchid]

Pictured bird is immature. It may not have the confidence to take on a chicken yet.

 

[dieselgrl48]

I wish! The last 3 year's We have had hawk's.Another has been just await every morn and eve.He has been going like a dummy for the duck's.But I have one group of OEGB's that go over there on the creek and forage too.This one is grey like the footless one DH put down in my coop last summer.It had gotten in and killed my Sweetie my last Silver duckwing hen that I had for 5 year's.I had one whole foot missing and probably couldn't hunt as usual and went right in coop and my poor babygirl was dead.We did have a redtail but this new one is BIG and Grey.Im a waiting.!

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

You might be right about it being immature, I'm not well schooled in raptors. A few weeks ago I asked if anyone had a documented Cooper's hawk kill in the Southwest and those who responded said while they had visits, none ever had taken a chicken. However, I have heard people talk about them being taken in the Southeast. I wondered if they are just larger back east. The problem with a lot of suspected hawk attacks is with reliability of the reports. I wouldn't attribute a kill to a particular species unless I actually saw it happen and I wish we had a good database by location of known kills. That would be very helpful.

 

[centrarchid]

Quote:
Need to see picture but reads like goshawk, larger cousin of Coopers and Sharp shinned hawks. Tougher customer too.