Would a hawk kill a full grown chicken?
Hawks....
- Thread starter Chickengirl47
- Start date
S.S.S. - Shoot, Shovel, Shut up.
Yes, you are allowed to protect your chickens. The way you protect your chickens is to keep them in safe adequate housing.
If you allow them to free range, you are going to lose birds, and the fault is no one's but your own. If you want to free range, you must accept your loses. It is not Mother Nature's job to protect your birds when you refuse to do so.
Sorry, but it is just plain foolishness to kill a $10,000 bird to protect your $4 bird. Especially when you are too irresponsible to provide safe housing for your flock.
If you allow them to free range, you are going to lose birds, and the fault is no one's but your own. If you want to free range, you must accept your loses. It is not Mother Nature's job to protect your birds when you refuse to do so.
Sorry, but it is just plain foolishness to kill a $10,000 bird to protect your $4 bird. Especially when you are too irresponsible to provide safe housing for your flock.
Last edited:
- Jan 31, 2012
- 61
- 4
- 31
You cannot kill hawks, but it docent mean you can't scare them off with a shotgun
!
They can be convinced to hunt elsewhere simply by imposing an unpleasant hunting experience. They want the easy catch with minimal risk. Many legal options available to make hunting chickens more of a challenge than going after smaller prey.
It is not fear. It is the fact I don't feel like gunning down every single organism that so much as breathes in my flock's general direction. My chickens free range, but have a coop and run that are covered with netting. At night they get closed up in the coop. During the day, I've had bald eagles, red tailed hawks, cooper hawks, rough legged hawks, and some I could not identify roosting in my trees. They roost for a short while, then move on. No losses. And since I free range, I accept I will lose a few.
If I was as kill happy as a majority of the population here, those birds would have been shot for no reason. No reason because they brought no harm to my fowl. Seriously, everything isn't out to get you in this world. Use a bit of common sense and learn to live with rather than against. People shooting everything they see left and right is the reason we have federal laws protecting animals, why we have endangered animals, because people proved they could not self regulate.
Ive been reading through this thread as we too have hawks as our #1 preditor problem. We live along the woods...we have fox and raccoon sightings regularly...but have not had any trouble with them. I believe its because we lock the chickens up tight at sundown and they arent allowed out til after 8am each morning. we are generally home during the day. (I home school and work at home).
Our girls are allowed to free range when we are outside with them. We taught them to come when called when we are ready to go back in the house. we lock them back up in the outdoor coop when we are not outside. We have been at this property for two years....we see Redtails and have coopers hawk as well(I think. havent seen them personally). We also have a large population of crows in our area. I used to dislike crows when we lived in the city...but they are our watchdogs here. We can now tell when a hawk is in the area. The crows call to each other, meet up as a group and then go off to bully the hawk.
Last year we had a redtail taking up residence on our property....eyeing our chickens daily. We would go outside and scare it away when we would spot it....One day, the day after we bought some new bantams, I was outside talking on the phone while the girls were free ranging nearby. The girls happened to be right up around the backside of the house while I was standing on the deck. Suddenly the chickens all froze....pressing as close to each other as they could. At that moment, a huge female redtail came gliding by at my eye level....only an arms length away from me, between the deck and an above ground pool a few feet away....It was quite an amazing, yet intimidating experience. She was gliding by, taking a head count of the chickens! I could see her scoping them out. She was focused only on the bantams it seemed. Her wing span was about my own! I couldnt beleive how close she was. And how confidently she glided by.
This was the day the fishing line went up over the outdoor coop. Our coop is now covered with thick fishing line, that is zig zagged irregularly across the top of the whole outdoor coop. Its just high enough to walk under. Since that day, we rarely see the redtail come over onto our property. We do see the redtails gliding over our neighbor's or over the woods behind us though....and that is when we hear the crows start their bullying tactics.
We have since then lost two chickens. One vanished out of a small outdoor pen during the day (a bantam). the pen was directly under low hanging branches...so I thought they would be safe. I made the mistake of not running fishing line over it. We lost another light weight chicken while they were free ranging inside the woods in the middle of the day.....while we were outside in the yard. We believe this would be from a coopers hawk. Ive been told they are good at hunting in the woods.
Since putting up the fishing line over ALL outdoor coops, we have had no more losses. So far so good. I understand that some people havent had luck with this fishing line defense, but it does work for us. Thank God.
Our girls are allowed to free range when we are outside with them. We taught them to come when called when we are ready to go back in the house. we lock them back up in the outdoor coop when we are not outside. We have been at this property for two years....we see Redtails and have coopers hawk as well(I think. havent seen them personally). We also have a large population of crows in our area. I used to dislike crows when we lived in the city...but they are our watchdogs here. We can now tell when a hawk is in the area. The crows call to each other, meet up as a group and then go off to bully the hawk.
Last year we had a redtail taking up residence on our property....eyeing our chickens daily. We would go outside and scare it away when we would spot it....One day, the day after we bought some new bantams, I was outside talking on the phone while the girls were free ranging nearby. The girls happened to be right up around the backside of the house while I was standing on the deck. Suddenly the chickens all froze....pressing as close to each other as they could. At that moment, a huge female redtail came gliding by at my eye level....only an arms length away from me, between the deck and an above ground pool a few feet away....It was quite an amazing, yet intimidating experience. She was gliding by, taking a head count of the chickens! I could see her scoping them out. She was focused only on the bantams it seemed. Her wing span was about my own! I couldnt beleive how close she was. And how confidently she glided by.
This was the day the fishing line went up over the outdoor coop. Our coop is now covered with thick fishing line, that is zig zagged irregularly across the top of the whole outdoor coop. Its just high enough to walk under. Since that day, we rarely see the redtail come over onto our property. We do see the redtails gliding over our neighbor's or over the woods behind us though....and that is when we hear the crows start their bullying tactics.
We have since then lost two chickens. One vanished out of a small outdoor pen during the day (a bantam). the pen was directly under low hanging branches...so I thought they would be safe. I made the mistake of not running fishing line over it. We lost another light weight chicken while they were free ranging inside the woods in the middle of the day.....while we were outside in the yard. We believe this would be from a coopers hawk. Ive been told they are good at hunting in the woods.
Since putting up the fishing line over ALL outdoor coops, we have had no more losses. So far so good. I understand that some people havent had luck with this fishing line defense, but it does work for us. Thank God.
I don't think it's fake at all. If it is, somebody had access to some expensive special effects gear. They even added the eagle's shadow into the clip. What makes you think it's fake? If an eagle is hungry, and he sees something he thinks he can handle, then he's going after it. The bird doesn't care if it's human or not.
Jack
Jack
Yes. Even the individuals of largest breeds can be taken out. In order to do so the hawk has to be able to latch on with feet and control chicken on ground. If it cannot or looses latch, then chicken can get away and sometimes even fight back.
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