Hawk Attack!!! RIP Dumplin'

[chickensioux]

In spite of turkeys, a huge roo, CDs hanging everywhere, it caught and killed my beautiful partridge cochin Dumplin'. She was fat and silly and she will be horribly missed. We (DH and I) walked into the backyard together and saw the huge thing fly off. We didn't have to look far before we found her. My chicken area is too large to fully cover so I have done everything else we could think of to deter hawks. RIP Dumplin'. I love you.

 

[elizabethlongwood]

Sorry about your chicken Dumplin', such a cute name for a chicken. We have hawks all around us, and they make me very nervous.
Like you, I can't cover my entire area with netting, so we have criss-crossed string and CDs.

 

[seminolewind]

I'm so sorry. I'll bet Dumplin was a little cutie!

 

[Lbrad7]

Sorry for your loss..it seems that if you have 50 chickens a predator will always find your favorite.

You are going to have to cover your chicken yard or keep your birds up. That hawk WILL be back! Good luck to you.

 

[annie3001]

many hugs to you.

 

[tcates]

I am so sorry!

That's why I have stopped letting my girls free range..... keep finding hawks in the trees above waiting.... such a terrible thing!!

 

[WillieBoy]

Sorry for your loss...there are redtail hawks around my place. In over 3 yrs of keeping chickens haven't lost a chicken to a hawk...The resident crows run them off pretty often.Where i let my girls range has lots of evergreens trees for cover near by.
The hawks are definitly here, the crows and good cover seem to work for me so far. Again, sorry for your loss...

 

[ChooksChick]

I'm so sorry!

One thing that helped me during hawk season was to put little red jewels all over in pairs like eyes- I got olive-sized faceted stick-ons from Michaels and Hobby Lobby. Check a craft store.

I also got a few balloons- the mylar silver ones- and put them in the yard as 'heads' on scarecrow bodies of overalls in a chair w/ boots in the legs. I put a hardhat on a broom handle as the head on another scarecrow, and it moved a bit in a breeze.

They won't come near my yard when this stuff is out...but neither will my neighbors!!

 

[chickensioux]

Thanks everyone. My chicken area is almost totally tree covered. There is a huge elm right in the middle, we are totally surrounded by trees, there is a very large shrub, the coop (they can get under) a wooden platform my husband built (1 ft off the ground for them to get under), cds and string everywhere, 2 huge turkeys and evidently a wimpy roo. We were home which means 4 dogs were going in and out of the house and the thing still found the time and the spot to sit there and kill Dumplin. My chickens are still freaked out and leary.


I too listen for the crows and bluejays to alarm. They have been very helpful.

 

[seminolewind]

I have an abundance of crows and they keep the hawks away, and bluejays. But that will not mean a guarantee. But I do leave the crows an egg or two each day, and they take them and fly away. So it's my only way of keeping them and a small price to pay.

What kind of chicken was dumplin?