Hawks and fishing line - am I wasting my time?

[speckledhen]

Quote: Rilly. Well, no hawk is going to keep me out of my own yard. How stupid, regulations or not. Sheesh. Sometimes, this stuff is taken to a ridiculous extreme, I'm afraid. I'm not advocating anything here, but wow, how unhelpful he was.

I always used neon colored nylon mason's line crisscrossed over pens, never fishing line, which would be heck to deal with. The nylon string lasts for years. And never line alone, but we hung CD's from it, which dance and throw flashes/reflections all over in a breeze. It messes their dive up. I've been semi blinded by a flash from those in bright sunlight myself on occasion since they're like little mirrors swinging and dancing all around. Never had a hawk come into a pen with these in play, though in truth, we've never lost one to a hawk in all the years we had chickens, even free ranging on our mountain property. Part of that are the roosters, part is they have good cover from leyland cypress, hemlock and rhododendron that we planted over the years in winter and all the oaks in addition to that in spring/summer/fall.

 

[rancher hicks]

These are my suggestions though I've only had two attacks. One hawk and one falcon. The falcon scored.

Plant shrubs such as Nine Barks that grow and drape over for the birds to hide under.

You could run two rows of grapes or other vines. Wisteria is an invasive plant or Hops might work.

I have two saw horses set up with a long piece of plywood on top for them to get under.

You can hang CD's or other shiny material from long posts stuck in the ground and off the eaves of your barn or coop.

Nine barks come in a variety of colors. I have Summer Wine but there are similar shrubs.

If you're not fussy with the type of grapes you can just buy whatever is cheapest and let it grow wild.

something like this can be easily covered with an Annual vine such as Cypress or Hops.

Cypress vine

Or scarecrows moved around the yard on occasion might work too.

Just some of my crazy ideas is all. Hope something helps.

 

[Paulette Phelps]

These are great.

 

[Henrieta1111]

I have the same problem my yard is 3.5 acres and in the woods 2 acres are open without trees. My coop is 8'x8' with a 10'x10'x7'
tall chain link fence and chain link screen top plus a roof over the entire coop and run. I have a red tail hawk that lands right on top of the run and watches my chickens and a pair of para-grin falcons that scope them out to. I had a great guard dog that bused to protect my flock when they free ranged but my neighbor shot her last fall said he thought she was a coyote I was ******! now I'm really nervous to let them free range but I love letting them for the food they scrounge up and I initially got chickens to eat ticks and lower the population around my yard. We have 28 hens right now just got rid of 5 roosters and we are growing out 6 barred rock chicks. Its illegal to shoot the hawks to. Not that I promote shooting pests after my neighbor shot my dog.

 

[rancher hicks]

I have the same problem my yard is 3.5 acres and in the woods 2 acres are open without trees. My coop is 8'x8' with a 10'x10'x7'
tall chain link fence and chain link screen top plus a roof over the entire coop and run. I have a red tail hawk that lands right on top of the run and watches my chickens and a pair of para-grin falcons that scope them out to. I had a great guard dog that bused to protect my flock when they free ranged but my neighbor shot her last fall said he thought she was a coyote I was ******! now I'm really nervous to let them free range but I love letting them for the food they scrounge up and I initially got chickens to eat ticks and lower the population around my yard. We have 28 hens right now just got rid of 5 roosters and we are growing out 6 barred rock chicks. Its illegal to shoot the hawks to. Not that I promote shooting pests after my neighbor shot my dog.

I am sorry about your dog. Was there anything legal you could do? Was the dog on your property or loose I mean.

I suggest you try some of my ideas. They can't hurt are easy enough and planting the right things can be a plus.

EX. Grapes make great jelly. A couple of rows of raspberries will yield a crop for home use or sale. Annuals such as Cypress vine and Cardinal vine are loved by Hummingbirds. Scarlet runner beans are another food crop planted annually.

Once predator birds see you out and about they'll find other hunting grounds. Mine did.

A simple arbor over every gate will create a nice focal point and give you beans. Save them and replant every year. Morning Glories are another though they might reseed themselves in unwanted areas. Many will grow along the edges of your woods.

 

[Jones5]

I've been seeing a lot about hawks lately on the boards, and unfortunately, we lost a hen last week to a redtail. "Buffy", our bigest, laying hen was killed right outside our living room window by a massive hawk. He flew off without even eating anything. Just snapped her neck and flapped away.

My kids were devastated. Inevitable as chicken loss is, this is actually our first pet loss as a family, so emotions were a little raw.

Anyway, I have been reading up a lot on hawk deterrents, and had an idea. While we do have a good, sturdy coop, and a covered run, we had been letting them free range the yard every day. I keep seeing references to fishing line being a good stop-gap measure, and I kind of ran with it...

We have 2 outbuildings in the yard, and a 6ft stockade fence around the whole thing. All in all, we're talking maybe 1/4 acre. Great yard, but nothing huge. My husband and I have been out there "spiderwebbing" a crisscross of fishing line ALL OVER the yard, effectively covering the whole thing.

Now, this is not a perfect grid or anything - there are some larger gaps measuring several feel across which need to be addressed somehow. My question is: will this even work? Or will a hungry hawk slice right through our ad-hoc deference system?

Have any of you had success keeping hawks off your chickens by covering large areas with fishing line? Remember, they are protected on all sides by a solid wood fence - it's mainly the air attacks we're worried about.

Short of putting a lid on the whole yard, this is the best we could come up with to let them roam a little.

Are we wasting our time?

We use fishing line over our pond and it has worked. I too wonder if it would work for a chicken run

 

[cmom]

This is an older thread but the information is still pertinent. I don't have a pond but did have fishing lines over my pens but a Great Horned owl managed to get through and kill some birds. I have some coops that are open on one side. Since I put netting up and only had one issue because I ran short so put up some crappy netting over the part I didn't have enough good netting for thinking it would probably deter any aerial predators. An owl went through the crappy netting and killed some birds. I moved the birds to another coop and pen and put a camera up and the owl came back and went through the netting again. I got some good netting and put it up and the owl tried to go through the netting but this time got stuck. We managed to get it into a cage and a wildlife rescue came and got it.

 

[Clg]

Fishing line has worked great for us with hawks, even with fairly large openings for years. Worked for owls too, until this year. We just recently tied smaller openings with it. Also strung up scare tape and lights. Will have to see if it works.

 

[mtgirl2]

We have covered an area between our house and our privacy fence with fishing line, spaced every 3 inches and we put bird netting on the sides. The girls have bushes to get under and their feed is in a secure coop. Stringing it up was quite a task for my husband and I. We felt like we were stringing a piano! So far so good. We have had a problem with hawks, losing one chicken while I was standing right there with a backpack blower! I did see an egret try to get in once, but it was very confused by the fishing line. We live in Florida and many of the neighborhoods with community pools use fishing line to keep birds from using the pool. There are a LOT of birds in Florida!

 

[cmom]

From a fellow Floridian, you are right we do have a lot of birds.