Coopers hawk on a rampage

[lmblackburn]

We bought 25 day old pullets back in the end of July, we are now down to only 16 birds. It seems that we have lost a lot of birds to predators this year. They are in a mobile coop and surrounded by an electric fence. This is our first time using the electric fence and in hindsight we introduced the chicks to it a bit too early. We lost two chicks to the fence when a predator came around and the peeps tried to flee but got stuck in the fence. That was our first lesson learned.

For the last few days we've been hit by a coopers hawk who has now taken 3 of our 3 month old pullets. Last night we decided to move the coop to a more covered/secluded location. But I am still worried about the hawk coming in. The only other idea I have is to string up some lines over the run and hope that the hawk can't or won't try and go through them. Just wondering if any one else is having hawk issues or what others might be doing to prevent hawks when using a mobile coop/electric fence setup.

Any advice is welcome.

 

[wyandotte freak]

We have a chicken tractor/ mobile coop. We were letting them free range out of it when we were home, but a hawk killed our RIR roo two weeks ago. We keep them inside the tractor which is coop on top with a ramp that leads down to the grazing area underneath which is surrounded by fence top and sides. The best thing to do is to put fencing over top. if that is not an option, many people on this site said that they string wires across the top with some kind of reflectors attached which seems to deter the hawks. some hang cd's or something like that to reflect the sunlight. if the hawk flies in anyway, he will most likely get caught in the wires.