Thank you Wifezilla and CMV! I bought a bunch of 20lb test fishing line and I created a giagantic web about 100' x 80' and 7 feet up over the area my muscovy like to play and splash in their pool, strung up another over the enclosure around the Harlequin duck house and a third over the portable run for the baby ducks. Worked like a champ! I came home from work very anxious last night and everyone was splashing, flapping and happy! No losses! I plan to put up a big one over the grazing area too so that I can give them some lightly supervised free range time. It might be hard to maintain when branches and leaves fall but it's so worth it
Good luck with your hawk problem, Wifezilla. Those things don't even seem to be afraid of my mastiffs! But Dana's Duck Buffet for Lazy Raptors is officially closed
The following is all the information I could find about my preditor problem. It's a huge post but maybe all this information will help someone else searching the internet for predation diagnosis:
I've spent hours researching to identify my predators so I know the best way to deter them. It seems like it's hunting in a "pack" of some kind... especially after this last attack where I lost 4 birds. One duck was dead down near the front of the property where the dogs have a small pool, another further in toward the duck enclosure, another just outside the enclosure, and one left alive but horribly mauled. It's clear they were running for safety that would only take them seconds to get to from the initial attack site so it wasn't a solitary hunter. All the dead ducks had no obvious signs of predation - no blood visible - just laying there all stiff. And the mauling is exactly the same on 3 ducks in 3 seperate attacks: Pulling out feathers on the back of the neck then eating all the skin off of the back of the neck. Lots of blood but the duck is alive and walking when I find it and no other areas were wounded or pulled at.
After everything I looked at I still think it's raptors. Some kind of bird that stuns it's prey before eating but hunts with a group. Seems most likely to be the a hawk pair or Peregrine Falcon pair (tho they tend to capture prey in flight). They're about the size of my young ducks but about 2 lbs lighter. Last night I saw a stick nest in the big fork of a tall tree not far from my barn. No birds in it at the time, but certainly not big enough for eagles or great horned owls. The only thing is... I doubt they're sharing the meal when so little is eaten. I considered that a momma raptor may be training her young to hunt.
I ruled out the two ground predators who might eat only the neck skin. Raccoons would get my dogs into a tear for sure, and there's no body of water close enough to my house for minks to hunt there. In fact, my dogs are really good about ground predators ~ even my vicious, man-eating squirrels ~ so, this predator is super fast and doesn't have to run across 2 acres of property to escape the dogs after getting the ducks in a huge ruckus.
Something else that's odd is that I haven't lost a single chicken, not even the white ones. And not a single baby bird has gone missing - I have 11 baby ducks and 4 chicks. Really weird.
Here's a description of the likely predators and links to some of the better websites I used in my research, hope it helps someone else:
Peregrine Falcon: The Peregrine is a very large compact falcon, often referred to as the duck hawk. The Peregrine falcon doesn't hunt just any prey, it hunts other birds ranging in size from the small passerines to birds the size of geese. A Peregrine's typical prey includes pigeons, ducks, gulls and herons. Prey may be taken over land or water, and often are caught in mid-flight. Peregrines fly above their prey and, once prey is spotted it folds back the tail and wings, with feet tucked, and goes into a 200 mph dive. Prey is struck with a clenched foot, stunning or killing it. The speed from the strike alone is often enough to kill the prey but if the prey survives this attack the peregrine has nothing to worry about because it just uses its hind claws to rip open its prey's back or rip its head off and that gets the job done. When the Peregrine retrieves its food, it will partially pluck its feathers before eating. They are usually located near the sea or by mountains or cliffs but can be found cruising other areas for prey.
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Harris Hawks: commonly hunt in groups of about 5, increasing their success rate and enabling them to take larger prey such as cottontails and jack rabbits. These hunting groups consist of a pair and other helpers, with the female dominating. They are fast flyers and once they have spotted their prey, they land and take turns trying to scare and actually flush the prey animal until it darts from beneath its hiding place.
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Owls: Hunting activity generally begins at dusk, but in some regions or when they are raising young, they may be hunting in late afternoon or early morning. From high perches they dive down to the ground with wings folded, before snatching prey. The force of the impact is usually enough to stun the prey, which is then dispatched with a snap of the beak. An Owl's flight is silenced by special wing feathers, that muffle the sound of the air rushing over the surface of the wing. This allows an Owl to hunt by stealth, taking their victims by surprise. It also allows the Owl to listen for prey movements while still flying. They have been known to walk into chicken coops to take domestic fowl. Owls often remove and eat the head and sometimes the neck of their prey. Owls also pluck their prey before eating; if the head and neck are missing, and feathers are scattered near a fence post, the likely perp is a great horned owl.
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Raccoons: Raccoons feed on both eggs and young turkeys. Raccoons will open one end of an egg and eat its contents without crushing the shell. These nocturnal predators are highly skilled with their front paws and can reach through the mesh of an enclosure to pull body parts off of a bird, most typically at night. They usually bite the head off, turn the bird over and eat the breast meat, leaving the wings and legs. When the adult raccoons are teaching hunting skills to their young, they have been known to kill, but not eat, turkeys.
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Mink: Mink are solitary animals. Home ranges generally stretch along shorelines and vary in size and length with the relative abundance of prey. They are carnivores, eating muskrats, rabbits, mice, chipmunks, fish, snakes, frogs and birds. The mink spends a lot of its time in the water hunting for food. It kills its prey by biting it on the neck. Weasels and mink have similar feeding behaviors, killing prey by biting through the skull, upper neck, or jugular vein. In poultry houses, they often kill many birds, eating only the heads of the victims.
Livestock Predation Identification Links:
http://merrittpoultry.wordpress.com/...dentification/
http://icwdm.org/inspection/Livestock.aspx
http://www.raising-chickens.org/chicken-predators.html
http://www.welphatchery.com/predator_diagnosis.asp
http://icwdm.org/handbook/birds/HawksOwls.asp
http://www.avianweb.com/peregrinefalcons.html
http://www.owlpages.com/owls.php?gen...es=virginianus
http://www.raptorcenter.org/harris-hawk.asp
