Hawk got one of my girls, what to do?

[centrarchid]

A survey is needed to back up but I think most folks loosing birds to hawks have flocks made up of females only or juveniles. Bantams seem to make prime targets regardless of age or gender. I have red jungle fowl that are just slightly larger than bantams but much faster and smarter than bantams, yet hawks have a relatively easy time catching males. My games which are otherwise very similar to red jungle fowl yet are relatively resistant to hawk depredation. Size is part of difference but I have yet to see red jungle fowl (RJF) even threaten a male Coopers hawk which is similar in size as game is to a much larger female Coopers hawk.

 

[deChickyHen]

Wow I am sorry for your loss.... I know I woulda been crushed to see what you saw.... Hope time will heal

 

[KirstenJL]

I have not gone through all the replies here, so you may have your answer already, but I'll add my two cents. I'm in my first year of raising chickens and I KNOW there are hawks around here. I got standard sized chickens which I thought would be too big for Cooper's hawks (turns out I was wrong, but here they seem to prefer the mourning doves). We started out by putting a lot of flagging up strung from the coop to the surrounding trees. You want to break up a direct flight path from the trees to the ground. We also made a couple of platforms from 2 x 4's that we covered with pine boughs so the chickens have a place to hide. They love them and hang out there during the day for shade and cover. I also got a rooster (which I wasn't planning on) to help warn the flock and he does his job well. I use electronetting to enclose my chickens and I've run it through a few wooded brushy corners of the yard, again for cover. They have a small run through which they have to go to get into the coop and I keep the door of the run propped open just enough to allow the chickens to pass through. A hawk could follow, but it wouldn't have a straight shot. We also had turkey vultures roost in the woods this year and I think they may have deterred the hawks somehow, but I have not seen a single hawk all summer and have had no chicken losses so far. Good luck!

 

[Hiram]

Thanks for all the good advice. KristenJL is the way I'll go. Try to reduce the angles and provide more cover. This is the way to go because I believe that the hawk was able to land due to my neighbor cutting down some trees. This made a big opening to my yard. Anyway I let them out yesterday while I watched over for a while. It was funny as soon as I got up to leave, they all went back into the run. I didn't have to chase them in or anything. Never in my wildest did I see any of this coming. I thought this would just be so easy, not a death game.