FYI Hawks are mirgrating now. Watch over your babies

[gsim]

Had a chicken hawk land on corner post of pen few days ago. Wife saw him and ran out shooing him away. Chooks were in corner in a huddle looking at him. My pen is open to sky due to being so large, 185 ft around, 2,000 sq ft. May criss-cross it with orange polypropylene twine like they sell at local Tractor Supply. That and sluminum pie tins, CD;s etc hanging will often keep preds out. I have a large permanent colony of crows here and they usually keep preds out with lots of support and noise, but that day they were not to be found nearby. Shows that it can happen. 12 gauge is now loaded and by back door in garage for next visit.

Here, hawkie hawkie hawkie !

 

[NateinFL]

Wow, great pictures, alot of times its the juveniles that will try and take on more than they can handle such as a full grown chicken, and if they dont kill it they'll certainly leave it doomed for death if nobody comes to its rescue. Definitely not to be taken lightly. There's feral chicken flocks not far from here I don't know how they ever manage to escape the hawks, dogs, mean kids, etc. On an interesting note I saw a hen that had her nest up in a tree! Only thing that tipped me off was the sound of peeping babies...guess they're smarter than we all think.

 

[Wifezilla]

If they can't take the whole bird, they just rip the head off. That's how hubby found Bebe

 

[Msbear]

Quote:
Is that 4 real?

 

[zazouse]

yea,it's for real.

I had never witnessed this kind of migration before, they usually migrate along the coast line, belive me when this happend 3 days in a weeks time, i thought sure i was outa the chicken bizz if they decided to take a break and the local hawks were all over my place ,

i got to thinking mabe them local hawks were trying to get them to stop in for some chicken nugets cause they were right over my chick pen every time the migrating hawks were passing.

I have nesting hawks that have lived on my prorerty for the last 25 years we have owned it, i am lucky in that they don't mess with my free range ducks or chickens, but they due keep comming in to check out the young chicks, so far they haven gotten any.

 

[AngieChick]

Wow zazouse, those pictures are incredible!

I do have a resident hawk, but as this is our first winter in this house I have no idea what will migrate through. My big girls are under dense tree cover, my silkies are under tree cover (not as dense) and I have a couple of big shiny wind spinners in their run. We also have an enormous flock of crows. But, letting them out of their small covered runs into their bigger spaces is definitely a risk. We'll see.

 

[Wild Chicken]

This is good info to know!! We had our first hawk attack last year, and of course it was the favorite that it got. We never did find her

. And than about a week later, while my husband was showing our 7 year old how to use binoculars, believe it or not he focused them in on another hawk attacking another one of chickens. I ran out of the house screaming like a wild woman, clapping and flailing my arms. The dang thing was attempting to take one of our hens and had left a pretty big gash on her back. Of course the poor thing was trembling

and shook up. But we gave her a lot of TLC and she was fine. It's a real worry now that all the leaves are off the trees, they have no place to hide

.

I'll keep my eyes open....and what great pics!!!

Funny thing is.....our last name is HAWK.........we want to make a play on the word in naming our little "farm" ...so if anyone has any ideas......

 

[cmjust0]

I was out setting a new fence post yesterday and heard that telltale screech overhead.. Looked up and there were about 6 or 7 buzzards and two hawks. One hawk was at about the same level as the vultures, but the other was waaaaaaaay up there.. Our chickens were out, but they never really come out en masse..just a few at a time, here and there. I dunno why..

Anyway, the hawks and vultures moved on.. One cool thing I saw was the waaaaaaaay up there hawk dive down.. It went from being a fairly big object in the sky to what looked like a football or something.. It absolutely streaked across the sky and when it opened its wings back up, it appeared at least twice as big as it was before. I figure it dropped half its altitude in a matter of just a few seconds.

Hawks surely are impressive animals, if not occasionally troublesome.

 

[wilds of pa]

Wow with all those birds in the air, id keep a gross or two of Triple Whistler Rocket w/Report around and use when needed..

Or any listed on the page below..

http://www.keystonefireworks.com/rockets.htm

 

[joebryant]

Quote:


Yeah!