Hawk seen and 4 hens missing!

[schikensue]

I just chased off a hawk from my (uncovered) chicks run and all 4 month old chicks are terrorized but accounted for. Now I can't find my 4 free ranging old hens anywhere! They are usually very social and come when called. Do Hawks keep coming back for more (ie all my hens are gone) Or are the hens hiding? How do I find them?

 

[chixcoop]

They might be hiding. That hawk would have to work pretty fast to get 4 hens. BUT, if he had all afternoon to do it, he maybe could have. My chickens are pretty dumb. I had one of my 5 get taken by a bob cat. 10 seconds later, the other 4 hens were back to pecking bugs in the grass. I would wait till nightfall to see if they come back. I know what this feels like, and its not fun.

P.S. Welcome to the forum!

 

[schikensue]

It wasn't a very big hawk, slightly smaller than my 4 month old hens. I hope the big girls are hiding. Sunset in an hour. Hope they come home! Thanks for the support, and the welcome!

 

[schikensue]

All home safe and sound. Apparently three were able to fly into my barn (where a weasel has taken up residence, from the pot into the fire so to speak, but they survived) and the forth appeared after dusk from deep in the forest! Tomorrow the run is getting a wire roof! Any other suggestions?

 

[chixcoop]

All home safe and sound. Apparently three were able to fly into my barn (where a weasel has taken up residence, from the pot into the fire so to speak, but they survived) and the forth appeared after dusk from deep in the forest! Tomorrow the run is getting a wire roof! Any other suggestions?

Great! So glad they're alright! For our coop, we have a roof, hardware cloth going around the bottom perimeter of the coop about 2 feet high (twisty tied to the regular chicken wire), and cinder blocks going into the ground to prevent animals from digging into the coop. If you don't have the cinder blocks, you can just put large rocks around the perimeter of the base of the coop, or even cinder blocks on top of the grass around the coop. The reason why we have hardware cloth (chicken wire with really small squares) is because coons and other animals can't chew through that.

 

[schikensue]

We have a similar set up minus the cinder blocks, our run is chain link with chicken wire 2' up the sides and buried 6" down and 1' across a trench packed with stone dust and resodded. But today the hawk was back and had the nerve to sit right on the fence observing. Apparently my plastic owl doesn't deter him at all, he was perched 6 ' away! Any ideas how to deter aerial predators? I'm going to cover the top in fishing line for today. Twice lucky, no lost birds. I think my 4 Roos are doing a good job so far.