Hawks finally did it

[Mskayladog]

Here is what we are doing to detour a breeding pair of hawks who killed one of my hens. First I had fishing line up and rolls and rolls of fishing line but the hawk found its way in. Here is what we have now.

Wire is the only way I can keep the girls safe. We are doing the whole field.
If you look through my uploaded photos you can see how I had the fishing line which did not work

 

[chickengeorgeto]

.... First I had ....rolls and rolls of fishing line but the hawk found its way in. Here is what we have now.
Wire is the only way I can keep the girls safe. We are doing the whole field....

Here is an example of some of the places that a goshawk hawk can fly through.

the other hawks are only a little bit more flight challenged. Hawks make their living catching birds and animals in a forest setting and can fly through some truly small places in the pursuit of prey. Watch the whole video to see just how small.

 

[Mskayladog]

Here is an example of some of the places that a goshawk hawk can fly through. the other hawks are only a little bit more flight challenged. Hawks make their living catching birds and animals in a forest setting and can fly through some truly small places in the pursuit of prey. Watch the whole video to see just how small.

That is truly terrifying! No wonder the fishing line did not work. I'm so glad my hubby loves me enough to cover the top of the field with chicken wire the field is totally enclosed sides with stiff small holed type of farm fencing and top with the chicken wire. We still need to do the rest it's taking rolls and rolls of 50ft length and 7 ft tall wire to cover the top. It's tall enough we can walk under and only have to bend down in a few places where it's sagging. Once the hawk got our one and only little banty hen the pair of hawks became relentless walking around the field sitting in trees not two feet from them just looking and waiting for guard my to drop and looking for places to enter. One time it swooped down trying to grab a hen not 4 ft from dh and I.

 

[cstronks]

Put poison in a dead rabbit put the dead rabbit in your yard bazinga no more hawks problem solved just don't tell your neighbours

This is probably the dumbest suggestion I have heard in a while. I have heard countless stories of neighborhood cats and dogs dropping dead because some fool tried to kill something off and accidentally killed a whole lot of other stuff. jkskol2000, everybody has hawk problems. YOU must take an initiative to protect your birds. Getting a rooster could help, but a large hawk will kill a rooster dead within minutes. You should cover a small free-range area so that the birds can access it without having to fear for their lives. Also, hawks are federally protected, so going and killing them could land you with a very hefty fine. If the birds are going to be let out, then you should take responsibility and watch them. They can be like children. If you let children out to play and you don't watch them, something bad can happen. Until you find a safe free-range area for the birds, you should watch them so hawks don't pick them off.

 

[cstronks]

Hi all -

So sorry to hear of the losses that have recently occurred. I came on here tonight because a hawk attack just occurred today for the first time with my 8 chickens. I was feeling pretty confident about the hawks staying away from my chickens because they haven't bothered them since they first started wandering our large fenced-in free-range area, and that was 4 months ago. The chickens are just so happy! Well, until today. My husband heard the chickens calling out an "alarm" of sorts, and he ran out to witness a hawk right on top of our little black Silkie. He chased the hawk away and truly thought the Silkie was dead, went to grab a garbage bag (i.e. coffin), and when he came back she was missing! She had quickly scurried to the part of the run under the raised coop, where all of the others had gathered as well. The poor thing is actually okay, she has a little cut (which we can't see because of all of her crazy poofy black fuzz, but there's a little bleeding). I now realize how lucky I was that she wasn't killed. I feel terrible for all of you that have lost one or more of your sweet girls. I don't think I'm "farmer" material - I will never be able to control my emotions when it comes to these chickens. I am such a freakin' sap.

Enough of the particulars of my story. Wanted to share a little bit of info that I have gleaned from some frantic research I have conducted in the past few hours. Here are some solutions that I've read:

1. Use bird netting to cover your free-range area. If it's a large fenced area like mine, it will be necessary to install some posts throughout the middle of the area to support the netting so it won't sag in the middle. And my fence is only about 5 feet tall, so I will have to also install some poles around the perimeter so the netting will be high enough for us to walk in and out of the area. What a pain in the arse.

2. Place one of those owl statues on top of your coop and on the poles to scare off the hawks. Apparently you need to move the owls frequently to different spots or the hawks will get wise to your trickery and realize the owl is a sham.

3. Place aluminum pie pans or other shiny or sparkly materials in the trees (or whatever is near the area where your chickens hang out). This also deters the hawks, but the effectiveness of this is apparently up for debate.

4. Purchase or adopt a livestock guardian dog (known as LGDs). So did not know what this was or that it existed, but there are breeds of dog that are natural livestock guardians and move to wherever your chickens are roaming at any given time. It's a time-consuming and lengthy process to buy these dogs as puppies and get them up and running in their job as protector, so I would imagine the best thing to do would try to find a grown LGD that already has experience with livestock. I've read that the best breeds for this are Great Pyrenees, Anatolian Shepherds, Akbash and Maremma. People debate back and forth about whether herding breeds of dogs work too, and some have had luck with Border Collies, Australian Shepherds, Australian Cattle Dogs, etc. But it seems that most people have found a clear distinction between HERDING dogs and LIVESTOCK GUARDIAN dogs.

From all the info I have read, it seems that the two most effective ways to protect the flock when they are free-ranging are 1) to install the netting above the chickens' roaming area, and 2) to get a guardian dog to stay in the roaming area with the chickens.

I apologize for the length of this post, but I thought I would try to pass on this preliminary information and prevent you all from having to reinvent the wheel!

Please, if anyone has had any luck with these approaches, or has successfully used another approach entirely, share it with us! I myself am a bit overwhelmed by all of this, and meanwhile the chickens are unhappy with confinement and scared to death. Good luck to everyone.

Suggestion 4 - the dog always works best. No hawk wants to get into it with a border collie!

 

[aart]

That is truly terrifying! No wonder the fishing line did not work. I'm so glad my hubby loves me enough to cover the top of the field with chicken wire the field is totally enclosed sides with stiff small holed type of farm fencing and top with the chicken wire. We still need to do the rest it's taking rolls and rolls of 50ft length and 7 ft tall wire to cover the top. It's tall enough we can walk under and only have to bend down in a few places where it's sagging.
Once the hawk got our one and only little banty hen the pair of hawks became relentless walking around the field sitting in trees not two feet from them just looking and waiting for guard my to drop and looking for places to enter. One time it swooped down trying to grab a hen not 4 ft from dh and I.

Maybe you're far enough south not to worry about snow...but if not, keep the snow knocked off the chicken wire.

 

[AlpineChick]

Mskayladog - wow, you and your husband are dedicated and tenacious about fighting these hawks! Thanks so much for posting a photo of the wire across the top of the enclosed field - it's so much easier to see how it works. Your field looks much bigger than my enclosed area, so you are inspiring.

Has anyone used hardware cloth as opposed to chicken wire for the sky cover? Chicken wire is more flexible and easier to manipulate, I would imagine, but hardwood cloth might maintain shape better and wouldn't sag as much. Any input on that?

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Just a little reminder.

Always remember that when it comes to Mother Nature and her juvenile delinquent children, "That there has never been a bronco that can't be rode, and that there has never been a cowboy who can't be thrown." Keeping chickens safe is an ongoing and continuous arms race between you the poultry's' owner, and everything on Earth with claws, talons, and fangs. If it wasn't everyone could do it.

 

[Mskayladog]

Mskayladog - wow, you and your husband are dedicated and tenacious about fighting these hawks!  Thanks so much for posting a photo of the wire across the top of the enclosed field - it's so much easier to see how it works.  Your field looks much bigger than my enclosed area, so you are inspiring.

Has anyone used hardware cloth as opposed to chicken wire for the sky cover?  Chicken wire is more flexible and easier to manipulate, I would imagine, but hardwood cloth might maintain shape better and wouldn't sag as much.  Any input on that?

I would think hardware cloth would work so much better then the 2 inch hex chicken wire we used, we are covering such a large area econimicaly it was not feasible.
We used 7 ft T post and used electric fence wire strung from post to post to help support the wire.


We had tried bird netting but had horriable sagging problems with it when we got ice or snow or it would get bogged down with leaves.i have my fingers crossed that the chicken wire does not have those problems.

 

[Fentress]

A rooster might help to keep watch, may not fight the hawk, but mine does do a good job of sounding the alarm. The flock looks to the sky to find the hawk and then decides where to run. My theory on hawks is that adults that are hawk wise can out maneuver a hawk if they see it, therefore the hawk to be successful needs to execute an ambush. I keep mine out in the open in order to make the hawk fly out over open ground so the birds have a better chance of seeing it. Stuff on the ground that provides cover can help, they really liked the cover that the leftover vegetable garden provided this fall. I plan on planting tall cover crops in the future to provide cover throughout the pasture. Good Luck.