Hawk

[chicken1011]

I have been on here reading alot of your post after trying to find out what to do about hawks. We have saw them for weeks now. Early in the morning you know when they are around cause my husbands chickens get so loud. I have learned when I hear this to run because the hawk is around. We have chased him off at least 3 times a day. The chickens are caged. Yesterday I was on the phone for about 20 minutes and got off and went to the back door to see if everything was okay.

When I opened the door I heard the most awful sounds. The chickens were in a panic. When I got to them I saw the hawk fly off. One of the chickens was lying up against the fence not moving while the other two in the cage were standing over it making the most awful sounds. There was a little spot of blood on the chicken and I kept thinking it was just probably stunned. When I got up close to the cage I was horrified. The whole head was gone. Nothing but a spot of blood left. I was so sick.

These are my husbands chickens and I have never had much to do with them but I was so sick I could have cried. Apparently, after reading alot of your post there is nothing we can do. I am to the point I am afraid to leave the house thinking this will happen again. I have learned this is what hawks do but it sickens me. I can't get those sounds out of my head.

 

[tiffanyh]

Do you have your run covered.....???

Your going to have to watch, he will most definately be back now. You need to cover your run so he cant get at them easily. I use deer netting. Works great, I have it double up--which is how in basically unrolls from the package. There are other suggestions on here to deter them also....some hang CD's, finshing line...but I havent tried any of those.

Good luck!

 

[Smitty's Farm]

Do you mean the hawk was able to get to the chicken through it's chicken run? How aweful! Do you mind asking what kind of wire the run is made out of? Is the run covered? I'm just asking b/c we have hawk in our area. I haven't seen them lately, but I'm sure they will be coming around more since food will be getting scarce. I use to let mine free range all morning and again in the evening, but now b/c the hawks they've been confined to the coop with connected run and they get to free range in the evening sometimes if supervised. I am so sorry about your chicken.

 

[ml]

what Hawks to to the chickens is horrible. Very sorry for your loss and feel your pain.

ML

 

[jjthink]

What an awful nightmare.

When you say "caged", do you mean that they are in a run? If it is not covered, then they are unfortunately sitting ducks unless they can very easily see a hawk approaching and run inside (still not foolproof, but helps). Uncovered runs where hawks can approach unnoticed are worse than free range, when they can at least try to run for cover somewhere. If the run is covered, then yikes, how did the hawk get in?

JJ