Chickens roosting with a red-tailed hawk??? **PICS** one dead!!!!

[Frozen Feathers]

I wonder if maybe he had been someones "pet" as you said he didn't fly away and he looks pretty calm in the pics. As a kid I knew people who would raid nest and raise the hawks until they were grown. It is illegal to do so...but some people don't care, i guess.

 

[silkiechicken]

Hmmm... hawks like to chew up the neck meat and eat that with a few scraps of breast meat. Coons tear up feathers but I guess could have done it discreetly, but I've found they take away their food to water. Head chewed off reminds me of minks or rats. If there was NO blood, maybe she got so spooked she died and a rat came up to eat the head? Since if it was grabbed and killed and eaten alive, blood should have leaked out.


A pic of it on the roost with the girls would have been great. Sorry you lost your BR.

 

[Southern28Chick]

What a beautiful baby hawk!!! It seems that if the hawk had killed your poor girl he would have been eating her when y'all found it in the coop, not roosting like it was just another chicken. I would think your other chickens would be scared to death if that hawk was the killer, but you said they were all just roosting like normal.

How did the hawk get in? Did you have the door/window open at night? My chickens go to roost every night at 7:30 before it gets dark. I make sure I'm outside no later than 7:35 to lock everything up and make sure everyone's ok.

Coons do usually come out at night but I have seen one in the middle of the day. I've also heard folks say their chickens were killed by a coon during the day too. Sounds like you should go out and try to predator proof your coop the best you can.

 

[ruth]

I don't know a whole lot about hawks but I'm pretty sure they don't hunt at night. If it was a baby maybe it got lost from it's mother and confused/scared and saw the other birds and did what they did - get on roost and went to sleep. Boy that picture would have been worth a fortune - something right out of National Geographic.

 

[countrygirl4513]

Holy cow!!!!!! That hawk is a beauty! Red tails are protected here. Many years ago we had one that was injured that hobbled around the farm, but he was gigantic compared to this one. Isn't it a shame something so beautiful can be so dangerous to our chickies?

 

[Half-a-dozen]

We have a secure closed run AND a very large open run (no top) and not secured. We let the chickens out early in the morning to the open run and at night lock them in the secured closed run.
We don't usually do this however until we go to bed, which most of the time could be very late like 11:00pm (like last night) so it is my fault, if it was a coon and it got in there after dark. I guess I let my gaurd down having the chickens for 4 months now and never ever have seen any kind of predator out there. (except for numerous turkey vultures who only eat dead things and this time of year they are gone. They only are seen in the winter months.)

Do raccoons climb???? Don't mean to ask dumb questions but I just don't know.
If it was not a racoon but the hawk then he probably did this during the day since I've been told it is a day hawk.
And yes I am now kicking myself for not getting a picture of the hawk roosting with the chickens!!!!!!!!!!! It was a classic.

If the hawk went down how do I keep one out in the future. The secured run is to small to keep the chickens in all day long which is why we let them out in the open run and lock them in at night.
And now we will have to lock them in early as I am now aware anything can snatch them up. Unfortunetly, learned this the hard way.

I am going to post this new problem in the injury section.
From last nights attach I now find one of my RIR's limping very badly. I do not see any physical signs of injury except that she is limping. What do I need or should do? will she be o.k.?

Thanks
Cindy

 

[ruth]

Yes, racoons can and do climb and have hands and little fingers that work as well as ours - they can open latches, etc.

As I said, hawks aren't out hunting at night but coons sure are.

Got to thinking about this hawk - maybe someone did raise it and then released it when it got too big. Poor thing probably doesn't know how to fend for itself - got lost and confused - saw some birds and bedded down with them in "bird house". The coon could have gotten the hawk as well since it too sleeps pretty heavily.

Hind sight is 20/20 but I think I would have left the hawk and waited to see how things played out. Would have been funny if hawk stayed and lived with chickens thinking it was a chicken. It would have protected it's "family" since hawks don't eat their fellow nest-mates. Would have been one for the television cameras. You feeding the hawk scraps of raw meat daily while the chickens dined on chicken feed and all of them going in to roost at night together. Hawk flying off during day and bringing back it's kill to feed it's family. A hawk for a guard? Chicken Hawk??? Anyway, funny vision playing in my head.

 

[Half-a-dozen]

That's good!!!! Chicken Hawk!!

 

[Poison Ivy]

Makes you wonder if it is used to humans. I mean the cop is holding it with his bare hands no gloves. I wouldn't have dared touch one like that I'd be afraid that it would tear up my hands.

 

[speckledhen]

Well, this is certainly a case of hanging around with the wrong crowd! Beautiful animal, isn't he?