Ever witness a hawk killing one of your birds? Did you kill it?

[Cetawin]

You can obtain a permit to kill a bird of prey that is terrorizing your livestock...but I would not even think about harming one without the okay from the Feds. It is a Federal offense...Birds of Prey / Raptors are protected as are other migratory birds.

 

[Hollywood Chickens]

I have never seen a hawk kill a chicken, but once a few years ago I saw a hawk grab a dove in the stomach to kill it and the other doves managed to confuse the hawk until it dropped the injured dove and then proceeded to feed and clean the injured dove for 8 months until it was completely healed!

 

[Hollywood Chickens]

Quote:
I was told that CDs look like fire balls to them and they will not land

 

[Jajika]

It's not my nature to ever harm any living creature (even spiders) unless I feel threatened.

And, I do understand a hungry animal will do everything it can to feed it's young.

I tried everything, as I said in my earlier post, to protect my birds and keep the hawk out.

What is interesting though, is that I never had a problem for eight years and would see the Sharp Shin's on my property often.

They'd sit on the bird bath or in one of the tall trees. They saw the chickens in their large yard and never bothered them.

Now---what may have changed is that there is a lot of new construction on the Stanford University land. Stanford owns about 1,000 acres of land not far from us. At least 2/3 is natural, undeveloped land, however Stanford is building some additional staff and residential housing plus a hospital expansion.

It is not much, but enough I bet to disturb the hawk habitat and that could be the answer. The terrain is different enough that there are Red Tail, Red Wing and Coopers Hawks over there, and the little Sharp Shins here that are not known to go after chickens.

Something changed.

 

[Year of the Rooster]

Last fall when my chickens were still young, my dad saw a Red tailed Hawk SITTING on top of our run. Good thing it was covered or else... As soon as my dad walked out there it flew away. It hasn't happened again since. Though, one day while talking with my neighbor, I saw a Bald Eagle fly over our house. If that thing had taken one of my chickens, I would have let it. Bald Eagles are precious here. We even have a few breeding pairs around our town's lake. I would have been upset, but knowing that it would help something as endangered as the Bald Eagle would lighten the pain.

 

[Ducklove334]

MOST birds of prey, even red-tails and red-shoulderd hawks, are becoming less and less common because of power lines, and poison,

the most hawks I have seen was the 6 i saw yesterday in a group flying around.

hawks do not, will not kill for fun, like a fox, or raccoon will, they kill because they're hungry, they kill your poultry because they're there, and in terms of hunting, they're easier to kill, less likely to defend themselves. hawks, like red-shouldered usually hunt mice and small birds, only killing larger prey with the intend to come back later.

ever seen a hawk try to kill a pheasant?, my grandfather said once while he was deer hunting, there was a group of pheasants in the feild below him, he saw a hawk swoop down and grab one, well the hawk come out the loser, we went down after the fight, the pheasant had broken the hawks back.

so to a hawk, risk getting injured by the wilder more agressive prey, or take a scared defenseless chicken?

 

[fowltemptress]

All I can say is I'm glad I don't live in Lubbock where my SO's family is. I'd be sore pressed to keep my calm around what seems to me to be gazillions of those blasted red tails. You can't take a step without running into one.

 

[Up-the-Creek]

If you let your chickens free range this is a risk you take. I let mine free range everyday and we have 5 to 6 hawks that stay close by. If one of the hawks fly over we are usually close by to scare it away,..sometimes not, but the chickens are pretty smart to get away from them. I have yet to loose one to a hawk. I have found having owls does not deter them, we have 3 or 4 owls in close vicinity. I did find out however that CROWS will run a hawk off. We always had crows that stayed close to our house and everytime one of the hawks came by the crows would run it off,..however my neighbor decided to run the crows off (shooting at them) because they were going to get in his garden,..so now the hawks are back. Needless to say his guinees(sp?) got ate by the hawks,.. he should have let the crows alone.

 

[BlackBart]

A Red Tailed Hawk flew down and snapped the neck of my Silver Spangled Hamburg. My big Jersey Giant Rooster, Black Bart, was traumatized for quite awhile after that.

I called my Neighbor who raises/breeds Hawks and Falcons, trains them and sells them all over the world.

He told me that if I chase the Hawk away it will come back to the kill. It did.
He brought over his live trap and trapped the Hawk. The live trap holds a live chicken underneath and when the Hawk lands to get the chicken the spring doors shut on him. (poor bait chicken)
He has a license to do this and he relocates them in winery orchards.

I know of people who have shot Hawks, Eagles and Great Horned Owls. They should be arrested! but you have to prove it.

 

[Equus5O]

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I haven't seen too many hawks this year. We are overrun with crows, though. My mother wants me to shoot the crows, but I'd rather listen to the cawing than have a hawk cart off one of my girlies.