Hi everyone-
Well we thought we were doing good. The girls are 4 months now and we've been lucky enough not to see a single preditor around until last night!!!
DH went out to close up the coop to find one dead and the others roosting with death staring them in the face. I don't get it.
There was a huge red-tailed Hawk on the roost with 6 of the girls.
The one chicken that was killed (Barred rock- lying on the floor of the coop) was missing it's head.
Why did the hawk not eat or go after the others???
Was it this hawk that killed the chicken or should I be assuming it was another preditor and coincedence that he was in there???? While my intelligent girls roosted next to him ; the one that quite possibly took out one of their sisters.
To get the hawk out we had called the police. They sent a sergent who took out the hawk with his bare hands. Picked him up and put him in a box. He would not fly away, we think he was injured. (can't say I cared about that, when he just took out one of our chickens!)
Can we safely assume the preditor was the hawk, chased the chicken into the coop attacked it and then did not know how to get out so decided to roost instead of having more dinner??? The only reason why I ask is because it's head was missing. I read the post about the preditors in Backyard poultry and it did not say anything about hawks eating heads just raccoons, and why would the chickens roost with him asside from the fact that they were not to bright!!!!
At any rate the poor kids cried themselves to sleep last night. we are all heart broken and the chickens won't come out of the secure run today to go out in their open run.
I've attached pictures of the predator below:
Well we thought we were doing good. The girls are 4 months now and we've been lucky enough not to see a single preditor around until last night!!!
DH went out to close up the coop to find one dead and the others roosting with death staring them in the face. I don't get it.
There was a huge red-tailed Hawk on the roost with 6 of the girls.
The one chicken that was killed (Barred rock- lying on the floor of the coop) was missing it's head.
Why did the hawk not eat or go after the others???
Was it this hawk that killed the chicken or should I be assuming it was another preditor and coincedence that he was in there???? While my intelligent girls roosted next to him ; the one that quite possibly took out one of their sisters.
To get the hawk out we had called the police. They sent a sergent who took out the hawk with his bare hands. Picked him up and put him in a box. He would not fly away, we think he was injured. (can't say I cared about that, when he just took out one of our chickens!)
Can we safely assume the preditor was the hawk, chased the chicken into the coop attacked it and then did not know how to get out so decided to roost instead of having more dinner??? The only reason why I ask is because it's head was missing. I read the post about the preditors in Backyard poultry and it did not say anything about hawks eating heads just raccoons, and why would the chickens roost with him asside from the fact that they were not to bright!!!!
At any rate the poor kids cried themselves to sleep last night. we are all heart broken and the chickens won't come out of the secure run today to go out in their open run.
I've attached pictures of the predator below:
