Hawk is visiting us daily

NewHen

Songster
10 Years
Mar 16, 2010
336
6
161
Los Angeles
My neighbor keeps doves and pigeons and chickens and some other types of little birds in his yard. We have tons of little wild birds in our other neighbor's trees against our backfence. Every evening, there's a hawk that's sitting on the telephone wire above our yards. A soon as it swoops in, you can hear a rush as all the birds take off and then it's silent. I'm concerned about letting the younger chicks run around in the yard. I guess there's nothing to do about it besides keeping the chickens in the run. The hawk is not that large. Would it try for a larger chicken? My other chickens are around 3 months old and quite large imo.
 
Chickens are never safe from hawks. My first hawk attack was on a full-grown Wyandotte hen. She was attacked by a Cooper's hawk which was literally half her size. The hawk couldn't actually kill the hen, but manged to inflict wounds that took 2 months of intensive care to heal. So, I would err on the side of caution and not allow any free-ranging without close supervision.
Good luck.
 
Someone else had a good suggestion in the discussion of hawks. Take cinderblocks and a sheet of particle board or plywood and set up a shelter the chickens can quickly run under when they spot the hawk. Hawk's advantage is removed once it's on the ground. I imagine you could set up a series of these and even cover them with grass so they look nicer. Haven't tried it myself but I think it would work well - key is the chickens being vigilant and spotting the hawk. And yes, the hawk will definitely consider your chickens prey worthy so if you don't want to put the chickens lives in their own hands I'd keep them in the run. Good luck.
 

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