Hawks :(

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Last week, I walked up to our fully covered chicken yard- And the hawk who had been sitting on top of one of the 12' tall poles holding up the 2" mesh nylon "game bird" netting and staring at the tasty chickens below flapped disconsolately away. I was carrying a gun, but did not care to shoot at the hawk as it is a beautiful animal which will remove plenty of rodents from the area- highly desirable!

I am very glad we covered the whole run before letting our chickens out. I have seen EVERY predator (or their tracks) known in our area within 100 yards of the coop. Bears, wolves, coyotes (lots!), bobcat, otter, mink, weasel, coons, skunks, domestic and feral cats & dogs, 3 kinds of owls and 4 kinds of hawks/eagles.

Our yard has a perimeter fence composed of hardware cloth dug 6" into the ground and running 18" above ground, laid over a heavy woven plastic netting extending 8' up on 4X4 posts. There are 2 strands of electrified tape on the exterior as well, 18" and 48" above ground level.

Only one predator has managed to penetrate in 2 years- A feral cat squeezed through a place where the top netting had not been sufficiently well zip tied to the fence netting. I took care of the issue before he got to have a chicken dinner...
 
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Bert2368 said:
Last week, I walked up to our fully covered chicken yard- And the hawk who had been sitting on top of one of the 12' tall poles holding up the 2" mesh nylon "game bird" netting and staring at the tasty chickens below flapped disconsolately away. I was carrying a gun, but did not care to shoot at the hawk as it is a beautiful animal which will remove plenty of rodents from the area- highly desirable!

I am very glad we covered the whole run before letting our chickens out. I have seen EVERY predator (or their tracks) known in our area within 100 yards of the coop. Bears, wolves, coyotes (lots!), bobcat, otter, mink, weasel, coons, skunks, domestic and feral cats & dogs, 3 kinds of owls and 4 kinds of hawks/eagles.

Our yard has a perimeter fence composed of hardware cloth dug 6" into the ground and running 18" above ground, laid over a heavy woven plastic netting extending 8' up on 4X4 posts. There are 2 strands of electrified tape on the exterior as well, 18" and 48" above ground level.

Only one predator has managed to penetrate in 2 years- A feral cat squeezed through a place where the top netting had not been sufficiently well zip tied to the fence netting. I took care of the issue before he got to have a chicken dinner...
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Yep, everyone loves chicken! We also have a fort knox with the buried fence, fully covered run, etc. Our last coop we had spaces of up to about 9 or 10" between zip ties. Even with overlapping fencing, a coon got in and we were not as lucky as you to interrupt the crime. :(

Sounds like you have a good system there! My DH is from Brainerd; there does seem to be a lot of hungry predators up that way!
 
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I'm not sure the size of the hen would make a difference? I mean, the little hawk that came down after my ladies was at least HALF the size of my biggest chicken. I don't have big girls, I mean, I have 3 wyandottes, and one of my 3 ameriucana's is a pretty big gal.....and it was after ALL or ANY of them! I did have a large bird eat one of our ducks over a year ago, they are much bigger than a chicken, but I didn't actually SEE what size of bird that one was. (we figured it was a bird of prey by the way that the skeleton was all intact and the spine was literally pecked CLEAN
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) I don't even leave our turkey out when I'm not in the yard. I would leave our toms out (if we still had them), NO ONE would mess with them. That's about it. My chickens are almost 4 years old, btw.
 
We had a scare yesterday...The girls were free ranging as they normally do in the afternoon when I am home when I heard a bunch of clucking outside and went out to see a sharp shinned hawk (smallest in North America) sitting in the apple tree above our coop. I looked down to find feathers everywhere! I was frantic. I scared the hawk off and finally found the girl who had gotten hit hiding in very thick fitzer shrubs nearby. I thought she was dead and I was devastated. When I touched her she moved and eventually inched her way out of the bush and ran at lightning speed to her favorite hiding place. I was able to coax her out and checked her over. She was fine - no cuts that I could find. I called my brother who is pretty knowledgeable about these kinds of hawks. I told him there was no way that hawk could carry off that chicken as she is at least 5 times it's size. He said that what they do is try to injure the bird and come back in a day or two to finish them off when they are weak and/or sick. So, the girls will be staying in the coop and run for the next few days until the hawk gives up. By the way, I have never seen one of these hawks in this area before. I was more worried about skunks and raccoons or my own dog than a bird of prey.
 
We live in Salt Lake City in the foothills. It is a normal neighborhood (built in the 1950s/60s) and we have deer, skunks, raccoon and occasionally snakes, but I hadn't ever seen hawks. Actually, I found out from a neighbor with chickens that a few years ago they were losing their girls like one a week. One early morning, they heard noise and saw police lights outside their house. They asked what was going on and were told a cougar was in their backyard eating one of their chickens! Apparently, it was an old cougar with bad teeth and the chickens were easy pickin's. Haven't heard of any other cougars around.

I am so relieved that the hawk didn't do any damage to my girls and hope that it goes elsewhere soon so they can free range again!
 
Wow! That is a fantastic coop! It looks like your girls will be safe & sound in there! I thought my coop was big enough, but I think I need an addition....since we keep adding new birds...I have this crazy habit of adding them in pairs when we lose one
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(which drives hubby bonkers, go figure)...anyhow, we also free range, thus the occasional casualty :-(
 
Just had our first scare with a hawk yesterday. He didn't get anybody, thankfully! We have 10 acres, but it is very open. The chickens have a 10x10 covered run they stay in unless we let them out for supervised free time. I'd love to free range them, but everyone in the area who's tried has lost theirs to hawks, coyotes, foxes, etc. Yesterday, a hawk was bold enough to perch right in front of me while the chickens were out! I scared him off, but I wouldn't put it past him to go after one right in front of me. Anyway, I'm thinking of trying this very simple pvc tractor sort of thing, so I can let them out some during the day without worrying about hawks.

 

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