Hawk pre-attack behavior

[Flat Earth]

A few weeks ago, I lost 2 hens to a hawk (1 killed instantly, 1 was severely injured and had to be put down). This was not a sudden attack, it was thoughtfully planned by the hawk. He or she had been hanging around during the day - perched in nearby trees, and on at least one occasion, actually landing on the ground near the caged run. The girls were safe in the caged area, but freaking out. Hawk was getting ready for the opportunity - which I provided. I stupidly allowed the 9 hens to free range (in an enclosed area, but open to aerial attack), and that's when the hawk made it's move. Totally my fault, totally foolish first-year mistake. Note: the chickens' area is in the woods. There were no hawks around when there were leaves on the surrounding trees, but now the trees are bare and the hawk had a clear shot, which might have made the difference.

Sorry for your loss, i hope you be able to find a way to stop the attacks.

 

[Sunshade82]

Hawk covers a broad list of species, which have different tactics that they have evolved to use to their own benefit. These could range from the classic swoop from the sky attack, to the set on a perch and drop a few feet to attack, even the land and chase down on foot attack. Depends on species, terrain, time of year, and lots of things. A lot of US hawk attacks on chickens come from coopers hawks, which can use any of these tactics, as well as their graceful slalom flight through obstacles, sometimes perching horizontally on a small tree trunk to get their bearing and timing correct, or even grab a limb and swing around like a pole dancer to make a direction change. Hawks are migratory at various stages of their life cycles, if they grew up eating chickens, and see your chickens as they pass through it is like seeing the golden McDonalds arches on a road trip. So it can happen without warning, usually fall migration. That is how it happens for me, it's always a passer through, the local hawks know that they are no match for my chickens and they don't want to end up broken and bald after tangling with a hen that heard her chick make the wrong noise. But the migrators don't know that these aren't ordinary chickens.

We have red tailed hawks that patrol regularly here. I saw two circling my neighbors house two doors down. From that point they would still have eyes on my yard anyway...but over 10 minutes they slowly got closer and closer to my yard. I know they know now.
My Girls are in their run with a flock block and cabbage volleyball. We’ve had COVID this week so I really didn’t want to hang out with the chickens outside anyway. Some of them have obviously let me know loudly that they don’t approve. Sigh. Once we feel better we will upgrade their run and add some more things for boredom