Favorite hawk deterrents for free-range chickens?

[BigBlueHen53]

Yes, hawks avoid crows. You can Google how to attract crows...I used peanuts in the shell and lots of perches. And we did have more crows that hawks while I provided these thinks, but I couldn't afford to keep doing it.

Right. Hence, the beautiful Australorps!

 

[KeepingDixie]

Yesterday while attempting to nap, my son alerted me that the girls were frantically walking back and forth at the back end of their coop as if they were trying to escape. This was odd behavior since their door was wide open for them to free range. I went out to discover that a visitor was trapped in their covered run. A small hawk flew in and was desperately trying to fly out. It must have tired itself out as I was able to easily trap it in a basket and release it without any trouble.
I'm going to have to rethink the free range activity they love so much. Normally I'm out with them but there are times I have let my guard down and quite frankly hawks are bold creatures. They don't scare easily unless my tough little humming bird annoys the heck out of them. Go hummingbirds!

 

[odchooks]

My favorite deterrent to hawks (for East coasters) is having a colony a purple martins. They are fun to watch and they will mob the Hawks. The chickens seem to also have learned their alarm calls and run for cover. Native Americans had Martin colonies for thousands of years- most likely in part to keep vultures and other raptors away from their tanning hides. It takes a while to get a colony going but worth it. The downside is they eventually fledge and leave the Martin house and then the Hawks are a problem again. I recently bought crow decoys and put them all over the yard. So far this seems to have deterred the red tailed hawk that was visiting our backyard every day after the Martin’s fledged and moved out.if you are in an area with mocking birds.. having berry bushes, letting the nightshade berry weeds grow and mulberries to attract mockingbirds can also help in summer since they also harass the predator birds (less effective than martins who will vigorously defend the territory around their bird house).