Ever had a run in with those poultry nabbing hawks post your stories and pictures
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That's a crazy story! What a beautiful bird though. He kills chickens, but he sure is beautiful. Good luck to you, and I hope he doesn't visit your property again!Oh gee. Just the thread I was looking for. I recently acquired three half-starved 9 month old cornish crosses. A mere 12-15lbs each. Three of them went into a 4X4 chicken tractor to spend a few days on good feed before butcher. I awoke today to SCREAMING CHICKENS in my backyard. I peered out my window and counted the number of birds in the tractor.... One, two, three... Four?
I ran outside and this is what I found INSIDE my tractor.
And now I have an epic hawk story to share. Yep. Screw you, hawk. Never come back!
Your lucky, my beautiful Gold, (a hen that layed amazing eggs!) Was takes by an eagle and eaten. :'-( Two days before the STAAR test, too. :-(
Adult red-tailed hawk. How did it get into confinement? They are not good at making their own holes.Oh gee. Just the thread I was looking for. I recently acquired three half-starved 9 month old cornish crosses. A mere 12-15lbs each. Three of them went into a 4X4 chicken tractor to spend a few days on good feed before butcher. I awoke today to SCREAMING CHICKENS in my backyard. I peered out my window and counted the number of birds in the tractor.... One, two, three... Four?
I ran outside and this is what I found INSIDE my tractor.
Yep. That's my chicken tractor. And that, my friend in a panicked, trapped, chicken-killing rough footed hawk. This bird has been stalking my property all year. Has taken a couple of baby animals and killed a CX earlier in the year from a different group that I raised out. Proceeded to dive bomb my tractors for months even when the CX's hit like 8lbs. I processed those birds and never saw the hawk again until today.
The door to my tractor is like a funnel; easy to put things in, hardtop lift things out. The hawk went in the top to get at the chickens, realized there birds weighed 5X's what it did, and proceeded to not be able to get out. It was lunging at the walls, grabbing them, and then falling on it's back only to be trampled by chickens into the mud.
Eventually we just lifted the tractor and released ALL the birds. The hawk was in too much shock to fly away even when I shoo'd at it and chased it.
It just ran onto my compost pile and sat there. I ended up having to figure out a way to lift it up and carry it off. I really hope this flippin' bird has learned not to mess with my chickens! Look at it's scraggly bum! It was so badly freaked out.
Here's a picture of me in my PJs still carrying the hawk off to release it back into the wild, hopefully to never return. This was the only way the hawk would let me carry him. He kept trying to flap away (to the ground) and claw me otherwise.
He was let go outside my yard and about an hour later flew away.
And now I have an epic hawk story to share. Yep. Screw you, hawk. Never come back!