ATTACK-I witnessed a hawk flying away with my chick!

[clbdownunder]

FlowerFarmer, I'm so sorry, I would be so traumatized, as you are. I live in the country, my hens love to free range, its a constant battle to keep them safe from any predators, if its not one kind during the day, its another kind of pred at nite.
One day with me close by filling their drinkers, hens were in their outdoor run, I heard a commotion, to see a redtail caught up and trying to free himself from the netting that covers the run. To me it looked as though he was waiting and watching from the dense crabtree, until I turned my back, then dove straight down on the pen! He got free from the netting within a few moments, but I wonder if the netting hadn't been there, would he have gotten one.
I have rather large breeds, australorps,wyandottes, cochins, etc, and would love to have a few bantys, but change my mind every time I think of the hawks carrying then off!
I strung thin black plastic netting over my outdoor run that I found @ Lowes in a clearance area. I bought every roll they had marked down to .97! Its the kind that u put over fruit trees to keep the birds off of fruit trees, and has very small squares. I overlapped it about 1 ft. Then took heavy roll wire and wove it thru the overlapped area, the whole lenght of it, took some time, but seemed to make it not drape down as much. It is wrapped down over the main fencing and secured with zip ties every few inches, also found marked down @ TSC. I can walk under outdoor run for cleaning....although I'm SHORT! Watch for things like this on clearance! That fruit tree netting was originally like 17.00$, plastic wrapping was just tattered and faded. Keep on protecting those beloved chooks!

 

[chickencrazyinHT]

I'm sorry it got your favorite chick. We have hawks all the time. Had 3 of my birds killed by a hawk before. My husband came home for lunch one day and found one of our little batams dead in the pen. It was the newest one we got and the other bantams were hysterical. At first he thought they had ganged up on the newbie and killed her. When he left for lunch he saw a hawk at the end of our coop flapping its wings around the sides of the pen trying to get him some lunch. He had reached through the wire with his talons and killed her and was trying to do it again. We put up boards at the bottoms of all our coops so that can't happen again. I never thought a hawk could get a chicken through the coop wire but it did. It has always been our bantams they try to get. Our full grown chickens have been ok. Although I have heard they can kill them on the ground. Be careful with your other chicks. It will be waiting now to have a second chance at another one.

 

[biffy]

OMG today a hawk flew into my chicken pen that has bird netting over the entire top except above the gate ... it flew in and got my favorite silky chick! I ran out and the hawk got caught in the netting and dropped the chick. I thought it was dead but it is just beat up I think. I almost got the hawk but it flew away.

 

[TAMMACLEAN]

I am so sorry for everyone who has lost one of their babies!

I have chickens and part of my plan was to let them free range in the yard. But I'm always afraid something might happen to them. I've been too scared to let them out of their run. I know they would love it and most likely stick close to us but still. We have huge crows, hawks, ravens, foxes, raccoons, fishers, skunks, and coyotes. Not sure I can handle letting them out.

 

[Mskayladog]

Could it have been a crow for me


I was sitting outside letting my girls roam, and I heard a sound a hawk or crow...came screaming like a bomber jet towards the chicks. I jumped out of my chair and grabbed the rack and ran towards it screaming at the top of my lungs and it pulled up. All the chicks had ran under a bush. This morning I out up deer netting from tree to tree to bush to bush at least now when I let them run free out of the regular run they will have a small bit of protection. Of course along with yrself being out there.


Do hawks make a screaming cawing sound when they are coming in for the kill or could it have been a large crow??? I was so busy screaming and running all I saw was wings a large wingspan

 

[centrarchid]

FlowerFarmer,

You did not indicate species of hawk. My first guess is Coopers hawk since hawk flew away immediately with chick and did hunting with you and dog close by. My rule for free-ranging chicks less than 8 weeks old is not to do so unless dog and full adult chickens present. Or without adult chickens only if dog and chickens are confined together in a relatively small area. Hawks, especially Coopers hawks, tend to target prey that present minimal risk and effort which mean chicks, then juveniles and finally adults. With adult chickens present, Coopers like to go after chicks and juveniles but simply presence of adult chickens can keep hawks from coming in. Having an adult rooster is even better because some will drive hawk away. If no defenders other than dog, then let chickens reach an advanced size that hawk cannot simply fly away with. Even though hawk can kill such relatively easily, the struggle will bring dog in denying hawk ability to consume catch. If hawk cannot eat what it catches, then it violates the minimal risk and effort system.

Once chickens are 1.5 lbs or better the hawks can no longer simply take of with catch so that is my criterian for free ranging groups of juvenile only chickens.

 

[EricaD]

Sorry for your loss We also lost our daughter's favorite chick to a hawk. We had only been doing supervised ranging and DH stepped into the house for just a few minutes (they had a zillion hiding places and we hadn't seen a single hawk yet) and when he came back out they were all gone! He searched and found them hiding under a bush, quiet as mice. He counted and thought he had them all. An hour later I got home with DD, she scanned the 18 chickens for 3 seconds and immediately said, "Rocky's missing."

Sure enough, she was gone, never to return. And every day since that day 3 weeks ago, the hawk has circled our yard multiple times per day, coming as low as our roof even with us standing in the yard.

We're now enclosing them with 200' of electrified poultry netting for a fixed run (not throwing in the towel yet on my dreams of free range, this is pretty close since it's such a large area) and we've raised posts and covered more than half of the run with bird netting. The other half has dog houses and shrubs and lots of hiding spots, and we continue to constantly supervise them while they're out and will do so until they're big. They're already much bigger than they were on that sad day And we've purposely made the run long and narrow and around some trees to make it harder for the hawk to navigate and hopefully deter it.

Yesterday the hawk sat up in a nearby tree, just watching. He sat there for nearly 2 hours.

On a positive note, we've tested the electric run by letting our dogs and cats run free and each has been zapped and won't go near it again! So it's definitely effective against 4-legged predators. Hopefully the bird netting will help, and I plan to make a moveable scarecrow and put out some other deterrents as well.

Oh, and we have a rooster too (possibly 2), but he's still young, But eventually he'll contribute to hawk patrol as well.