Hawk is picking off my flock!! Help!!

[aart]

In many states it is illegal to kill birds of prey/raptors without a permit from the state's department of natural resources/wildlife.

All States...it's a national law.
Can't even harass them.

 

[jeepgrrl]

Yep! Cover them up for a while and see what happens. Going to need a roof! I just caught a bird of prey ontop of my covered run yesterday.

Boy, they are brazen creatures! The hawk that killed my EE pullet last September came back later that same day and sat on the roof of the run, terrorizing the girls that were locked in below.

 

[Headhen3]

My birds free range on 20 acres not that they go too far from the barn. The roosters seem to do a good job of keeping an eye on the sky and giving a warning so the girls go for cover. I also string baling twine and/or string thin rope between the barn and trees, fence posts whatever. I have seen and heard a hawk pull out of a dive when they spot the string because they are afraid of getting entangled. I’ll have to try the cd on a string though. I have one of those red blinking eye things but it looks like the coons an possums just walk right past it. The best thing I’ve found to bait a box trap with is sweet corn. They cannot resist.

 

[fawnda]

I wasn’t sure. Thought maybe a Cooper’s hawk, a Merlin, very common around here, or a Peri Falcon. Thank you!

Not a falcon, it's a Sharp-shinned Hawk. They eat songbirds almost exclusively, but can take a bird close to its own size and feed off it there. Smaller birds it prefers to fly off with if it can. They de-feather a bird before feeding. A falcon has a different build and is just a broad term/family of birds.

 

[HopeSprings]

Okay, so fake owls are used to keep crows away and a statue of a heron will keep real herons from eating your koi fish from your pond. Do you think a large, fake hawk posted atop the coop might keep hawks away?! Hmmmm....

 

[Thomas70]

In the beginning I saw and heard only red tail 2 hawks, but they must have went and told their buddies. One day I looked up and there were 8 circling high over my chicken pen. I tried hanging CDs and it seemed to work for a while. They had killed my black sex hen and eat a few bites and left the rest. One must have picked up and flew off with my bantam rooster because there was no trace of him. I bought PVC pipe from Lowes and built a frame to cover my run which is about 20' x 30'. I covered it with chicken wire but if I had it to do again I would use wildlife netting which you can order from Lowes. After it was covered the hawks fly over and look around and leave when they see they can't get into the run. Obviously their eyesight is that good. I like to let two or three run in the yard sometime, and occasionally hawks show up. Bottle rockets are very effective (can't buy here but I got some in TN when vacating in the Smokey mountains) and those make them leave like you were shooting at them with a shotgun.

 

[Thomas70]

I have a red tail hawk and vultures now flying over my yard. Starting to worry me . I will shoot them.

Be mindful it is unlawful to shoot red tail hawks, and I believe vultures are protected as well. Vultures only go after dead animals so I would not think they would bother live chickens.

 

[Shadrach]

Hawks love baby birds.....but do not break adult bird necks and leave them. Somebody else did that.

Just not true. The Goshawk here breaks necks. Not as a deliberate kill technique but purely from the force of impact and they kill and leave.

 

[aart]

Okay, so fake owls are used to keep crows away and a statue of a heron will keep real herons from eating your mom fish from your pond. Do you think a large, fake hawk posted atop the coop might keep hawks away?! Hmmmm....

None of those things work for long, if at all...
...someone makes a lot of money off people who believe it tho

 

[ariri30]

I have hawks flying around and I have lost a couple of hens since I started raising chickens and a couple that put up a good fight and feathers were everywhere in the backyard and survive with just a few scratches and no tail feathers. It’s quite scary. Yesterday there was one perched on the shed and it didn’t care I was there. When I’m at work I just pray that they are ok.