How heavy of a chicken can a hawk carry away?

[aJadeMagnolia]

Yes Eagles! I notice you are in WA too. Eagle are everywhere here. It seems like only yesterday they were so endangered you went decades without seeing one.....now, I saw one drinking from a mud puddle in the road last week. I used to worry about hawks.....there isn't a day goes by those things aren't in the sky. Huge.....

When I was a little child I was told that there used to be Bald Eagles here too but they haven't made quite the comeback in these parts of the East Coast that they seem to have made in WA. It was the DDT that nearly caused them to go extinct. The hawks have come back and are in strong numbers now but the eagles are still nowhere in sight.

Leave it to poison-peddling Monsanto to really destroy the planet. Well, they say they started banning DDT in the US in 1972, but then again, being agricultural, this was once a heavily DDT-sprayed area. They didn't use planes as much as they did out west here, a lot of large spraying-equipped tractors mainly. But just think how many years have passed and what was once a place where eagles thrived is still feeling the effects of a widespread devastating poisoning.

And don't believe the hype that DDT can "save" lives by killing mosquitoes. Nothing could be further from the truth. There are far safer alternatives for mosquito control, they only say that because they have warehouses full of the poison to sell and profits go down everytime someone rightfully says that DDT is a poison. See the following article for proof: "High levels of DDT in breast milk in mothers living in malaria-stricken villages in South Africa" https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120903142949.htm

And in case you're not convinced as to how deadly DDT is, not only for the animals, but for us, check this out: "Study: DDT Pesticide Linked to Alzheimer's Disease" at TIME.com: http://healthland.time.com/2014/01/28/study-ddt-pesticide-linked-to-alzheimers-disease/

Remember the film 'North by Northwest' where Cary Grant was being chased by a pesticide sprayer with the intent of murder? Monsanto certainly hasn't forgiven Hitchcock for that one yet!

And there's a great movie with Glenn Ford, Marlon Brando, Machiko Kyo and Eddie Albert called "The Teahouse of the August Moon" where there's actually a scene talking about gardening and Eddie Albert says he does NOT want DDT because it will destroy the earthworms and thus the soil. In real life, Eddie Albert was an 'organic', natural gardener, long before it was fashionable. And Glenn Ford used to raise chickens in Beverly Hills too, and it wasn't "in" then yet either:

For the truth on DDT, visit: http://www.panna.org/resources/ddt-story


Maybe now we can all band together and get glyphosate (aka RoundUp) banned! And if you're wondering what I mean by that, here's why:
"Glyphosate May Be Worse Than DDT | Hazards of Glyphosate":
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/02/13/glyphosate-ddt-alzheimers.aspx

And there's plenty more: "Concerns over use of glyphosate-based herbicides and risks associated with exposures: a consensus statement" https://ehjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12940-016-0117-0


TAKE ACTION: Tell Amazon, Home Depot and Walmart: Stop Selling Monsanto’s Roundup!:
https://action.organicconsumers.org/o/50865/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=20684

 

[TominWa]

Ya, I'm about as far away from a tree hugger as you can get, but there is something to what went on with the DDT. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest in the 50s and 60s I never saw an eagle. Ever. Then in the early 90s I remember calling my wife after seeing one on a fairly remote road. I wasn't even sure what it was, but I pulled over and sure enough. A bald eagle sitting in a little log jam on a river eating a fish. It was a striking moment. Now, 20-30 years later they are everywhere up here. Everywhere. They will be spreading east of the Rockies again I am sure. Nature can come back, but we almost killed them off. It seems like when they started to crack down on the DDT, Eagles, Condors, all the large birds started to make a comeback. You have to wonder what is going on with our food.

Not to sound like one of the crazies out there, the reason we started our flock, and garden was to have some control over what is going on. I don't see anything good coming from the way they are messing with our food supply and seeds. Am I turning into a crazy prepper....not yet, but it wouldn't take much to push me over the edge.

 

[m1marin]

Once a hawk has seen your hens will it come back? This morning there was one perched in our neighbor's tree checking out our 3 hens. It flew away when it saw me come out but I'm worried now.

 

[SunHwaKwon]

There are tons of bald eagles where I live her in Maryland. They are about as common as osprey, hawks, and so on.

Once a hawk has seen your hens will it come back? This morning there was one perched in our neighbor's tree checking out our 3 hens. It flew away when it saw me come out but I'm worried now.

It depends. My worst luck is with the ones that are migrating, it seems. To be safe I would either keep them penned (assuming the run is covered) and/or make sure they have plenty of places to hide.

 

[Blue Ridge Farm]

I just lost a Black Asian Pullet. No feathers or nothing to show what happened. I believe it was a hawk as my neighbor saw one flying around. I'm going to cover the top of my run now for sure.

 

[TinyBirds]

Our neighbors had a group of hawks carry a 40 lb turkey away together. We have lost all size birds to hawks, but white silkies and young birds usually would be the first taken. Theu will come back every day and bring their friends. They get into covered nets too at edges. It's like a real jurassic park and i've had nightmares my kids were taken by hawks. Welded Wire covered runs and chicken tractors are best defense.

 

[SkinnerMan]

Just had two hens killed by a red shouldered hawk. The hawk was able to drag them across our yard about 150ft, although was not able to lift them over the fence. I don't think they are capable of just flying off with them, but they can drag them.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I am curious... When people mention attacks on their chickens by hawks, how big are the chickens? Can a hawk carry a full grown standard size chicken? Or, is it more a concern for bantams and younger chickens?

There are 3 species of "CHICKEN" hawks. These are the red tail, Coopers, and sharp-shinned or blue darter hawk. This is not to say that no other raptor will eat chicken flesh but this does mean that the 3 above named hawks are specialist at catching and eating birds. The largest and strongest hawk by far is the red tail hawk. East of the Mississippi the red tail hawk weighs up to 4.5 pounds for the female and as little as 1.5 pounds for a male red tale, Any female red tail West of the Rocky Mountains will be less than 4 pounds. The real problem with a hawk making off with your favorite hen is the fact that a feathered chicken has too many drag creating wings, tailes, legs, necks, and hackle feathers dangling in the hawks slip stream to allow a hawk to ever fly off with its talons full of chicken.

The Coopers hawk is the next hawk down on the chicken hawk scale and in some ways this is the most dangerous hawk to your chickens. This is the hawk that I most often see pictured perched on top of chicken coops eyeballing the coops inhabitants.

The blue darter or sharp-shinned hawk is mostly a threat to baby chicks bur don't fret because these hawks can eat fuzzy baby chicks like a boy scout troop eats pop-corn.

25% seems about right for the amount that a female red tailed hawk can fly away with.

Hawks are poor at killing and it is often that a chicken can survive after a hawk made a meal or two out of it.

A male red tail is capable of killing an adult standard size chicken and because both the mother and daddy hawks care for the young hawks and the male hawk is capable of returning time and time again to the kill and carrying away the flesh until the victim is reduced sufficiency in weigh to allow the hawk to fly away with the remainder of the victim.