Breda Fowl thread

[DutchChicky]

Very sad day at the DutchConnectionFarm! Lost one of my juvenile Breda's this morning to a bird of prey. Just minutes before I opened the coops at 7:30! She was still warm and the bird didn't even get a chance to eat anything before I got there. Flew away when I walked up, looked like a falcon. Just last night took a picture of her, sitting high up in the tree, if you look closely you'll see 5 sitting up so high I can't reach them even with my net! They are the best flyers! Have to somehow figure out how to keep them out of the tree at night., so i can lock them up. Because I had th2 coops still locked up, they had no where to hide.

[/IMG]
So so Sad!

 

[gritsar]

Very sad day at the DutchConnectionFarm! Lost one of my juvenile Breda's this morning to a bird of prey. Just minutes before I opened the coops at 7:30! She was still warm and the bird didn't even get a chance to eat anything before I got there. Flew away when I walked up, looked like a falcon. Just last night took a picture of her, sitting high up in the tree, if you look closely you'll see 5 sitting up so high I can't reach them even with my net! They are the best flyers! Have to somehow figure out how to keep them out of the tree at night., so i can lock them up. Because I had th2 coops still locked up, they had no where to hide.

[/URL]
So so Sad!

So sorry you lost them.
My chickens, even my flyers, know that a coop is where to roost at night. When they are first moved to a coop as babies they are locked in until they learn this; even if it takes up to two weeks. The breda chicks I have are 5 weeks old (bator hatched) and 6 weeks old (broody hatched). The broody of course taught hers to go in at night, the bator babies learned from watching the broody hatched. They even know that they have to walk to the back of a large coop to their section - the brooder section.
Have you tried locking them in until they get it thru their heads?

 

[DutchChicky]

Oh yes they been inside for 5 months already, just something they been doing from the last week. Have about 20 juviniles and 3 adults a 16x7 coop. Only the hens are doing it. So maybe they don't want to be in with the boys anymore?

 

[BlueJayFarm]

That's very sad, and I feel for you! It's really hard when the timing is so close.. you think "if only I was a little sooner!!" But just think of all those times you probably did deter a predator and didn't even know it. Poor little girlie! Oh, and watch out, in my experience, the same avian predator will return for a few days. Might want to keep everyone locked up for a couple days.

 

[SilkiesForEver]

How sad! I got lucky the other day when a little falcon swooped down on one of my Old English Game pullets. She dodged it, thank goodness, but he was so close! First hawk attack we'eve had around here in a long time!

 

[BlueJayFarm]

That makes me nervous. I've had three different birds of prey stalking my flock from the trees in the last week or so. The rooster warned me and I got everyone in, but you know that feeling..... like the inevitable is bound to happen... I also think it's quite early for them to be turning their sights back on the chickens; maybe they've eaten all the mice or maybe these are the migratory birds showing up now. I'm having flashbacks to January!

 

[Sylvester017]

Very sad day at the DutchConnectionFarm! Lost one of my juvenile Breda's this morning to a bird of prey. Just minutes before I opened the coops at 7:30! She was still warm and the bird didn't even get a chance to eat anything before I got there. Flew away when I walked up, looked like a falcon. Just last night took a picture of her, sitting high up in the tree, if you look closely you'll see 5 sitting up so high I can't reach them even with my net! They are the best flyers! Have to somehow figure out how to keep them out of the tree at night., so i can lock them up. Because I had th2 coops still locked up, they had no where to hide.

[/URL]
So so Sad!

It's obviously not an option for you since you seem to have a forest - but we and all our surrounding neighbors chopped down our old and tall trees on our properties and now we have no issues with hawks, possums, squirrels, coons, rats, and cats jumping around easily from yard to yard using the trees. And with no trees there's no roosting hens! Our neighbors and our reasons for chopping down the old trees was to clear a rat problem coming in from the local freeway trees but we found it eliminated a host of other critter problems in the process.

 

[Sylvester017]

That makes me nervous. I've had three different birds of prey stalking my flock from the trees in the last week or so. The rooster warned me and I got everyone in, but you know that feeling..... like the inevitable is bound to happen... I also think it's quite early for them to be turning their sights back on the chickens; maybe they've eaten all the mice or maybe these are the migratory birds showing up now. I'm having flashbacks to January!

Aerial predators seem to avoid going after hiding hens. We have a pop-up canopy, a couple large doghouses with straw, an old wheelbarrow, a couple benches, some planks setup on cinderblocks, thorny rose, evergreen, and berry bushes all as shelters for our hens scattered around their foraging yard. The Cooper's Hawk will sit on the fence watching the hiding hens but won't go after them and our girls will stay hiding until he flies away or the Crows chase him off! Having a lot of scattered shelters offers short running distances for the hens to hide from aerial predators and we haven't lost a hen in 3 years from the local Red-tailed and Cooper's Hawks. Hawks like an open area to swoop on a running hen so if there are several scattered shelters for hiding in open areas it limits aerial access.

 

[Penny Hen]

Aerial predators seem to avoid going after hiding hens. We have a pop-up canopy, a couple large doghouses with straw, an old wheelbarrow, a couple benches, some planks setup on cinderblocks, thorny rose, evergreen, and berry bushes all as shelters for our hens scattered around their foraging yard. The Cooper's Hawk will sit on the fence watching the hiding hens but won't go after them and our girls will stay hiding until he flies away or the Crows chase him off! Having a lot of scattered shelters offers short running distances for the hens to hide from aerial predators and we haven't lost a hen in 3 years from the local Red-tailed and Cooper's Hawks. Hawks like an open area to swoop on a running hen so if there are several scattered shelters for hiding in open areas it limits aerial access.

Planting giant sunflowers will give hiding places too as well as providing seed for the chickens.

 

[BlueJayFarm]

Aerial predators seem to avoid going after hiding hens. We have a pop-up canopy, a couple large doghouses with straw, an old wheelbarrow, a couple benches, some planks setup on cinderblocks, thorny rose, evergreen, and berry bushes all as shelters for our hens scattered around their foraging yard. The Cooper's Hawk will sit on the fence watching the hiding hens but won't go after them and our girls will stay hiding until he flies away or the Crows chase him off! Having a lot of scattered shelters offers short running distances for the hens to hide from aerial predators and we haven't lost a hen in 3 years from the local Red-tailed and Cooper's Hawks. Hawks like an open area to swoop on a running hen so if there are several scattered shelters for hiding in open areas it limits aerial access.

I'm glad that has been effective for you and your flock. Our flock has a ton of places to hide, including numerous shrubbery, secondary growth trees, and old growth trees. We have a garden and landscaping designed with them in mind. That did not deter a red-tailed from killing my hen this winter in a narrow span a few feet wide between mature trees and a garden (along the giant sunflowers), nor did it help my hen who was under a canopy evade a falcon the year before. The hawks I've scared off this last week were all in the branches of a giant fir tree. The rooster had all the ladies bunched up under a branch and was yelling out the alarm, thankfully. For sure, plenty of cover is key, but even so, when you live in a raptor migration area like we do, the pressure can get pretty serious. Falcons particularly are built for getting prey in forests. I've thought about adding guinea fowl to the farm. We are too close to neighbors for peafowl..