Hawk

[wenwar]

Had a hawk try to land on one of my birds! Thankfully, the dog and the boyfriend saw him at the same time and he flew away. Aria fled to the coop and was not harmed. We have a huge yard and can't do netting. Any suggestions to keep Mr. Hawk away would be appreciated.

 

[True Patriot]

You can't keep a hawk away out in the yard like that. You can give you flock hiding places for when it comes around. Pallets stacked in an A shape make decent hide shelters. They're also free if you look around.

Anything they can hide in when danger is near will help. The only other choice is to build a suitably sized covered run.

 

[sourland]

Realistically, monitored free ranging, covered pens, multiple hiding places are the only legal solutions to hawk predation, and they are only partially successful. Hawks put me out of the pigeon business. I truly have a love/hate relationship with them.

 

[wenwar]

Thankfully, there are multiple places they can get under in the yard. We have lots of trees, the hawk came down in the only open area. We can add some more hidey holes for sure. Thanks for all your help!

 

[Folly's place]

Your hawk will likely return, and it would be best to lock the birds in a safe area for a week or two, so that bird gets discouraged and moves on. I too have lots of 'cover' for my flock, but occasionally a hawk gets a bird anyway (especially youngsters and bantams!). That hawk always comes back in three days or so, and needs to find nobody to catch!
Mary

 

[wenwar]

Your hawk will likely return, and it would be best to lock the birds in a safe area for a week or two, so that bird gets discouraged and moves on. I too have lots of 'cover' for my flock, but occasionally a hawk gets a bird anyway (especially youngsters and bantams!). That hawk always comes back in three days or so, and needs to find nobody to catch!
Mary

 

[wenwar]

Your hawk will likely return, and it would be best to lock the birds in a safe area for a week or two, so that bird gets discouraged and moves on. I too have lots of 'cover' for my flock, but occasionally a hawk gets a bird anyway (especially youngsters and bantams!). That hawk always comes back in three days or so, and needs to find nobody to catch!
Mary

He has come back, thankfully we saw him and put the chickens up before we left. I was really surprised that he landed with our boxer dog in the yard. We have plans to move the chickens into a permanent shed with lots more room than their current coop, I won't feel so bad keeping them out of the yard.

 

[centrarchid]

Get a picture of the hawk. There can be subtle differences in how to deal with them based on species of the hawk.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Had a hawk try to land on one of my birds! Thankfully, the dog and the boyfriend saw him at the same time and he flew away. Aria fled to the coop and was not harmed. We have a huge yard and can't do netting. Any suggestions to keep Mr. Hawk away would be appreciated.

There are two forces at work here. One is the 100 plus years old Migratory Bird Act.

The other force is that if you don't play host to, or coddle hawks, then you won't have hawks landing on your birds.

 

[cmom]

I have heavy duty netting that covers all of my pens. I have a couple of coops that are open on one side and something was killing birds in those coops. I couldn't figure out how it was getting in, this was before I put up the netting. I put up a game camera and discovered it was an owl. I had put electric wires around my coops and pens and I had put concrete under the gates because of a fox, now I put up the netting over the pens. The trees were much smaller then and we have added more coops since.