Hawk Attack - Debrief/Discussion/Help

[BastyPutt]

Dony

Well we have an update. Unfortunately we never located our poor rooster but a red fox came over our fence through our lawn today.

So we’re now sure there was an aerial attack by still unidentified bird of prey. Rooster fought off bird but the commotion was heard by a fox and it took him over fence. Heartbreaking we weren’t outside at that moment to save him - I feel awful but he saved all of the hens. No more free ranging unfortunately. Time to expand the run! Thanks for everyone’s comments and if anyone can ID the original non-chicken feathers I’d be interested to know!

Do your local ordinances allow your or fish and game to trap and relocate the fox?

 

[lavenderforluck]

Dony

Do your local ordinances allow your or fish and game to trap and relocate the fox?

That’s a great question I hadn’t thought about. I’m going to look it up. We have humane traps available. Would there be a concern about taking a mother fox away from her den? Do you know how far it needs to be relocated?

 

[lavenderforluck]

Dony

Do your local ordinances allow your or fish and game to trap and relocate the fox?

Looks like we’re not allowed to relocate foxes in Virginia because they get disoriented and don’t do well being moved. There is a state law stating we can kill a fox that harms domestic stock or fowl but we won’t be doing that.

 

[Leaches123]

I just lost 6 beautiful hens to what I’m guessing is a chicken hawk, as one tried to get my bird through the mesh the other day. Only 2 little tufts of under feathers seen. Only One hen was tucked up in nesting box when we got home, just can’t believe they took 6 full grown with such minimal evidence

 

[lavenderforluck]

I just lost 6 beautiful hens to what I’m guessing is a chicken hawk, as one tried to get my bird through the mesh the other day. Only 2 little tufts of under feathers seen. Only One hen was tucked up in nesting box when we got home, just can’t believe they took 6 full grown with such minimal evidence

Oh no I’m so so sorry! Do you have foxes where you are? Or coyotes? Based on all the research we’ve done after our recent predator issue, it seems unlikely that any hawk could carry off a full grown hen - and definitely not 6. Could they be hiding anywhere? Again, I’m so sorry! We were devastated after our rooster was killed and taken by a fox.

 

[Leaches123]

Oh no I’m so so sorry! Do you have foxes where you are? Or coyotes? Based on all the research we’ve done after our recent predator issue, it seems unlikely that any hawk could carry off a full grown hen - and definitely not 6. Could they be hiding anywhere? Again, I’m so sorry! We were devastated after our rooster was killed and taken by a fox.

We have foxes, but we are hard fenced in town, it’s unlikely it’d be able to escape and without notice, and no blood or pieces anywhere.. but would you believe 1 hen returned! I have no idea where she was hiding, there’s nowhere else for any to hide. I’ve seen a chicken hawk take a hen before, they weren’t large hens, but you are right in saying, so many gone in a few hours seems unlikely unless a family of them!

 

[lavenderforluck]

We have foxes, but we are hard fenced in town, it’s unlikely it’d be able to escape and without notice, and no blood or pieces anywhere.. but would you believe 1 hen returned! I have no idea where she was hiding, there’s nowhere else for any to hide. I’ve seen a chicken hawk take a hen before, they weren’t large hens, but you are right in saying, so many gone in a few hours seems unlikely unless a family of them!

Oh I’m so glad one of your girls made it back! Still just so sorry I know it’s so hard to lose them.

 

[Luv Ducks]

When Britons and europeans say "hawk" they mean an accipiter. A goshawk is the biggest one.

Our most common "hawk" in the Americas is a red-tailed hawk. You'd call it a buzzard. A giant death buzzard as she is significantly bigger than a Common Buzzard, and her feet are comparatively huge -- she takes bigger prey. Red-tails are about twice as heavy as goshawks, but slower and not as bold.

A red-tail still isn't big enough to carry a chicken off. She still only weighs four pounds. She can kill a chicken and might drag it into cover but probably won't, dragging things into cover is a goshawk-ish sort of behavior, a red-tail usually eats in the open.

We have larger hawks than that, ones that would be classed as booted eagles in the old world, but they are not in Virginia.

My guess is that these are the feathers of a broad-winged hawk, Buteo platypterus, a middling crow-sized bird with small feet. It seems the rooster beat the snot out of her, and I expect she will go back to hunting the small rodents she's adapted to take. But what happened to the rooster after, I can't guess.

My next door neighbor had chickens last year and a Red Tailed Hawk picked one up and got 6 feet off of the ground when her husband threw his shoe at it and it dropped it. The chicken survived but they could not believe either that a Red Tail could pick up a chicken until they saw it for themselves.

 

[babybop11]

Unfortunately after 4 years we had our first hawk attack. Thankfully only one hen has a minor injury and missing feathers (its been tended to and we think she will make a full recovery), but our very loved rooster is missing. We didn't witness the attack and unfortunately didn't capture it on camera so while it would be speculation, I'm looking for some possible support and discussion.

Based on her injury and feather evidence the hawk attacked one of our Marans then our large Black Copper Marans rooster stepped in and attacked the hawk (significant hawk feathers). Where the hawk feathers are - there are zero feathers from our rooster which led us to believe he put up a good fight. However, further back on our tree line there was a very small pile of feathers of his and a trail of a few up our fence line and then another small scattering under our large tree in front yard.

Given he is missing and the feather evidence we suspect the hawk did manage to injure or kill him and take him but here is where we're a bit lost - our rooster was large (7+lbs - possibly upwards of 9lbs). We live east of Richmond, VA and have seen hawks but none large enough to fly away with a 7-9lb bird. This doesn't mean it didn't happen. We've search high and low for him or his remains or additional feather trails, but nothing. Unfortunately nothing was seen by our neighbors. Have you seen medium, even large-sized hawks carry off large roosters? I included a picture of him from about a year ago - he was a bit larger than the image.

We're keeping the girls in their run and coop for a few weeks and will only let them out when we're both outside as well as our dog from this point moving forward. We will also be expanding our run and putting up some hawk deterrents. This is our first predator attack and like many folks here we're very sad especially not knowing if our rooster is out there somewhere injured. We are grateful he defended and saved his girls.

I live in West Henrico!! I wonder if the same hawks that I constantly see around are bothering you all too. I always want to let my girls free range but we don’t have a rooster and those hawks always seem to be around

 

[McChooky]

I found some white chicken feathers on the side of our fence a year before I started free ranging and never found the carcass . Apparently a predator had caught one of my neighbors chickens.