Cooper Hawk

[JoeG]

The ravens are around valley center, but there aren't many. Love to watch them harass the hawks! Scrub jays chase everything away, even hawks. Mean, noisy little things.
I also had serious ground squirrel issues. Culling them off is the only solution. I had no luck with traps and poisons aren't an option with my dogs around. The best solution is a Mendoza pellet rifle and scope I purchased at turners. It's effective and instant! Works great for gophers as well ( watching Caddyshack as I post this)!

 

[animals1981]

ravens are worse than crows cause they will actually try to seriously hurt the large hawks and eagles by pulling out their flight and tail feathers


they also cause nesting failures of falcons and all kinds of hawk species, they are much smarter than any bird species they will wait till the mate is out hunting till they attack. They hate birds of prey with a passion.

Ravens are the only birds that can control eagles that I have seen at least. The rest of the birds just flee in terror other than tiny song birds like kingbirds.

 

[Teery]

The ravens are around valley center, but there aren't many. Love to watch them harass the hawks! Scrub jays chase everything away, even hawks. Mean, noisy little things.
I also had serious ground squirrel issues. Culling them off is the only solution. I had no luck with traps and poisons aren't an option with my dogs around. The best solution is a Mendoza pellet rifle and scope I purchased at turners. It's effective and instant! Works great for gophers as well ( watching Caddyshack as I post this)!

Poison is not an option for me. I have dogs as well. My friend has been having pretty good success with a trap on the ground squirrels. I am not sure what his method / trap is. I will ask him. I have had great success with gophers using Blackhole traps baited with lettuce. I use them in the back half of my acre where landscape isn't an issue.

In my lawn I use an old 3.75 hp b&s from an old pressure washer. I dump exhaust down the holes using a 1/2 flexible natural gas appliance hose. 90% affective...I don't want to dig bigger holes in the lawn to set a trap in. I like this as I can kill gophers in my neighbors yard as well if the tunnel network heads under the fence. I would think exhaust would work on GS as well...not sure though...

Whats the FPS on that Mendoza?

 

[chicknmania]

I want to thank everyone for the ideas. I do have 2 roosters in the run where the attack happened but they are only 5 months old my adult rooster is in another run maybe I could switch out roosters. I do have dogs that get along great with my chickens but I don't want to leave them in the chicken run all day while I'm at work because they like the taste of chicken poop and that can't be good for them to have an over abundance of it all day long.

I went out and bought 1800 yards of mason string and am going to make a web over the run with a tall center support, hopefully that will help. I am also going to put some CDs and wind spinners in there also my coops and runs are behind my house so it will not be an eye sore, besides I'm lucky my nearest neighbor lives a mile away and I live at the end of a dead end road. I hope by using a combination of ideas I will not have anymore losses. I do realize that living way out in gods country that I will have some losses because I do let my adult chickens free range while I'm home but I do want to try to prevent as many as I can. Again Thanx for the ideas.

You're welcome, good luck! I WOULD say let us know what works best, but oh, my......

Maybe better just left unsaid.

 

[JoeG]

Poison is not an option for me. I have dogs as well. My friend has been having pretty good success with a trap on the ground squirrels. I am not sure what his method / trap is. I will ask him. I have had great success with gophers using Blackhole traps baited with lettuce. I use them in the back half of my acre where landscape isn't an issue.

In my lawn I use an old  3.75 hp b&s from an old pressure washer.  I dump exhaust down the holes using a 1/2 flexible natural gas appliance hose. 90% affective...I don't want to dig bigger holes in the lawn to set a trap in. I like this as I can kill gophers in my neighbors yard as well if the tunnel network heads under the fence. I would think exhaust would work on GS as well...not sure though...

Whats the FPS on that Mendoza?

 

[JoeG]

The claimed FPS on the Mendoza is claimed to be 1000-1050 FPS with a .177 pellet. A little slower at 950 FPS for a .22 size pellet. It has interchangeable barrels. Can vary a bit depending on type of pellets used. It's very effective.

 

[JoeG]

...

The claimed FPS on the Mendoza is claimed to be 1000-1050 FPS with a .177 pellet. A little slower at 950 FPS for a .22 size pellet. It has interchangeable barrels. Can vary a bit depending on type of pellets used. It's very effective.[/quote
The model is RM 2003. You can still find nice used ones online for $125-150 without the scope.

 

[CoopCognito]

Unwanted visitor came into our run through the open door yesterday. It was quite the scene. Our chicks took cover hiding behind our Big Green Egg grill (Insert Irony here) in corner of carport. No casualties. Once trapped in the run, the male cooper escaped through the netting overlay on top of run. Once out of the netting, he just perched up on the corner post of the run. Unphased by throwing walnuts at him, he flew off after a couple of bb gun warning shots. We're going hang cd's around and hope he stays away.

 

[centrarchid]

Your hawk looks like a juvenile red-tailed hawk. Color is similarish to juvenile Coopers Hawk but red-tail is a lot chunkier with shorter tail.

 

[cgmccary]

Your hawk looks like a juvenile red-tailed hawk. Color is similarish to juvenile Coopers Hawk but red-tail is a lot chunkier with shorter tail.

I agree, juvenile Red-Tailed hawk. He doesn't know how to hunt well and is just very hungry.