Can a peregrine falcon carry off a chicken??

[chicks4kids]

I have a nest of Peregrine falcons that have nested every year for 3 years in our front woods. They seem to be stalking our chickens. My question is, although they are much smaller than a red tail hawk, have any of you witnessed or experienced one snatching up a chicken and taking off with it??

They seem too small to me, but they sure like hanging out in the trees by the coop and the chickens are hiding from them.

 

[rhodiegal]

We used to have game birds that free ranged. One time I heard the roo going crazy and went to the front window. There was a small falcon-like bird standing about 2 feet from the rooster. All of the hens had run under the porch. It appeared to be contemplating the chicken, but was obviously to small to carry one off. It finally just flew away. After that, I can remember one more incident with the falcon-like bird and it did the same thing - landed next to them just looking at them and then took off. He most definately wanted the chicken, but could not pull it off. I don't even know if we have falcons here, but it was a bird of prey smaller than a hawk - kind of like a bantam version of a hawk with different coloring.

I would think the bird I saw could get a chick, small young pullet/cockerel, or Serama sized bird, but not the standard sized chickens.

 

[Joecola123]

I would think they can carry away a young one but hawks have trouble carrying away a 14 week old

 

[jvls1942]

I am just going to lurk and read what this post brings.. OK ?

 

[pbjmaker]

They will carry off a banty chicken or young ones. We lost a couple of maybe 8-12 week old ones last summer to a peregrine. They almost got off with my full grown "C" size serama too, but she is fiesty and put up a huge fight until I got out there. She lost all her tail feathers on one side to him.

 

[ducks4you]

You need to relocate them in a big city where they can eat more pigeons.

 

[CMV]

They may not be able to carry off a chicken, but I bet they'd be willing to kill a chicken and eat it on the spot. A Cooper's hawk tried to grab one of my hens this spring, but couldn't manage to subdue her... mostly because she was TWICE its size. So, it lost out on a meal, but I ended up with a poor hen that came back ripped to shreds. Peregrines and Cooper's hawks are about the same size and eat essentially the same diet, so I wouldn't feel safe having either of them around my birds. They will make attempts on chickens of any size if nothing else presents itself at mealtimes. And even if they don't succeed at killing the chicken, the wounds they inflict during an attack can be horrific.

 

[Emzyyy]

Quote:
Can you do that? like maybe someone can come out and trap them for you?

 

[jvls1942]

Quote:
Can you do that? like maybe someone can come out and trap them for you?

contact your DNR or animal control

there are most probably laws against you doing it yourself..

 

[wombat]

We have a bird feeder on the other side of our property, away from the chickens. It attracts doves, and the hawks eat the doves.

My wife refers to the bird feeder as the "hawk feeder."

It wasn't our intent to feed doves to the hawks ... we were feeding birds near our home office window, and nature took it's course ...

So far, the hawks have not bothered our chickens. We have a roofed run, and the dog is out when the chickens are free-ranging.