Hawk killed my blue ameraucana hen....aaagghh!

[chickengrl]

Happy New Year everyone!
Well, not the best way to send off the old year. DH and I left to run a couple quick errands and was gone for about an hour and came home to a very silent coop. All the chickens were out free-ranging so we both just thought that perhaps they were out in the woods. As we walked up to a lean-to shelter my husband built for the chickens a large hawk rose up from the ground and flew off. "that's really bad" was all I said to DH and we moved around the corner we could see that he had just killed my favorite pure-bred blue ameracauna hen. Hardly a mark on her, just a small area around her neck where he must have held her and suffocated her. The hawk had just started to pull out feathers to get to her. It took some time but we eventually found the rest including our 2 roosters, other hens, and 8 young pullets up around the house hiding in the bushes. Anyway, I think I can finally convince DH that we need covered pens or at least a LGD. We will have to free range when we can be out there with them and supervise.
This is actually our second predator loss this winter. We had a fox take a young almost ready to lay barred rock last month. Luckily my husband is a good hunter, an excellent shot, and it WAS hunting season on fox. He went up in his deer stand the very next morning, and sure enough a male and female fox came back for another chicken at almost the exact same time. Those two will not be having chicken dinner at my house again! Anyway, here's to hoping this year will bring fewer chicken eatin' predators to your house and mine. Stacy

 

[bufforp89]

I feel your pain. I have lost 4 to a hawk lately and am no in the process of converting to covered pens. Right now I have all of my chickens under one netted pen and they are going crazy wanting to get out. All 80 or so of them. So Im going back out into the cold to cover a chainlink dog kennel with netting so my chickens stop trying to kill each other and can be safe. I hope you get your issue resolved. Im my experience the hawk will just keep coming back.

 

[mountainme]

I feel for you!

About 2 weeks ago a hawk attacked my Buff Orpington, she survived, with no marks or anything, but she seemed freaked out all the time, was puffed up constantly, didn't eat as much. We tried a few things but it didn't seem to work, she was always a fragile hen, at the outskirts of the flock and so on....sadly she died last night. We have a closed up coop but were letting them free range. I've stopped letting them outside since the hawk attack (it was a Cooper's hawk, I'm a birder) and now there is a foot of snow on the ground anyway...I know that the other chickens were really scared after that and didn't want to go outside for a few days, even in their run.

 

[dinahmoe]