Huge hawks

[Egghead_Jr]

The two smaller "chicken hawks" is the Coopers Hawk and the Sharp Shinned or Blue Darter Hawk a.k.a. sometimes also called a Quail Darter Hawk. The name Chicken Hawk means that there raptors hunt birds (mainly)

According to the USFWL Service the Bald Eagle is at, or is approaching its natural population numbers. Bald Eagles in my view are a marine species. This means that they chose to live and nest close to large bodies of water.

You forgot the Marsh Hawk. Also known as Hen Harrier. Larger than a Coopers but smaller than Red Tail.

 

[ShrekDawg]

I read red tails usually don't go after adult chickens and mostly hunt mammals and stuff? Is that true you think?

 

[RanchDreams]

Wow Now Im really worried. My girls are only 3 and 4 weeks old and still living in our house. We have a dog run behind our garage that is being turned in to a chicken run with a coop. I had planned on letting them free range for a couple hours each day but now I'm worried about that. We have red tail hawks, falcons, osprey, raccoons, possums, skunks and coyotes here even though we live in the city (beach community) I was hoping my dogs (a great dane and a great dane/ridgeback mix) would discourage predators but now i'm second guessing that. I've seen the birds of prey here take down very large crows. Not sure what to do now...

 

[KYTinpusher]

We have a family of redtails living in our area. We see them quite often circling overhead. They have gotten a few of our chickens and a duck. They don't like to come into small areas, so one of my runs is considerably smaller than it used to be. If you ever have a redtail attack and your cock chases him off, make sure you check the cock over very well for injury. I lost a very good one because I didn't see a wound on his leg from the hawk. It became infected and killed him.

I have had our cows and our mini donkeys chase off the hawks when they went after the chickens free-ranging in their pasture.

 

[ShrekDawg]

Wow Now Im really worried. My girls are only 3 and 4 weeks old and still living in our house. We have a dog run behind our garage that is being turned in to a chicken run with a coop. I had planned on letting them free range for a couple hours each day but now I'm worried about that. We have red tail hawks, falcons, osprey, raccoons, possums, skunks and coyotes here even though we live in the city (beach community) I was hoping my dogs (a great dane and a great dane/ridgeback mix) would discourage predators but now i'm second guessing that. I've seen the birds of prey here take down very large crows. Not sure what to do now...

We have a lot of similar predators but I feel like supervised and.with lots of protection they should be okay. Plus some of them are more nocturnal predators. The dogs should help being so big haha but then again they may not be able to stop it

 

[ShrekDawg]

We have a family of redtails living in our area. We see them quite often circling overhead. They have gotten a few of our chickens and a duck. They don't like to come into small areas, so one of my runs is considerably smaller than it used to be. If you ever have a redtail attack and your cock chases him off, make sure you check the cock over very well for injury. I lost a very good one because I didn't see a wound on his leg from the hawk. It became infected and killed him.

I have had our cows and our mini donkeys chase off the hawks when they went after the chickens free-ranging in their pasture.

We have a family of hawks too I'll definitely keep an eye out for injuries too

That's awesome the cows and donkeys chase them off!

 

[pattyhen]

Just yesterday, a hawk killed my beloved Looloo. She was only feet from our door, with trees and bushes all around. He just sat down right there to eat her! I am devastated.

I'm so sorry for the loss of LooLoo.

Patty

 

[DarkWater1929]

Thank you, Patty. I have been avoiding looking at things that remind me of her. Isn't that silly? She was very young; I did not have her in my life very long; yet I am feeling her loss so keenly. I think that it was her utter trust in us, and her obvious pleasure in our company. All of our critters come-a-runnin' when we sit outside, hoping for hand-outs. But, Looloo would stay, even after the goodies were gone. She genuinely liked people, and us in particular. We often came outside to find that she had deposited herself on the lap, or the shoulder of some unsuspecting visitor. The looks of total confoundment on their faces was always worth a photo! She just liked attention. That her little soul should be gone from my life is just way more difficult to digest than I ever, ever would have suspected.

For the record, Looloo was Swedish Flower. We have not had a Swedish Flower roo, so I cannot speak to them. However, our hens and pullets have ALL, without exception (that sounds like a lot, but actually, I am speaking of four birds), been the sweetest little birds! They just seem more people-oriented than other chickens. I very seldom see them available for sale, but believe that I will be keeping a lookout for them from now on. No one could replace Looloo, but it sure would be nice to have a happy little hen run up to us as we drive in, again. I hope that there is a Heaven for chickens. I really do.

 

[ShrekDawg]

That was a beautiful post/dedication? Memoir? Dark water and again I am so sorry for your loss. I hope you can find more Swedish Flowers and perhaps I can get one one day

 

[heartland]

Yesterday, I lost my 18 month old Buff Orptington to a hawk that was bigger than she was. I had never seen a hawk up close like this. It pains me to even write this, but I want to share because maybe my experience will help.

First, I live in the middle of St. Louis, so even in the middle of the city this can happen. I have a large back yard, and even though during the summer, we sectioned off and put up temporary fencing so the girls would have their OWN yard away from the garden, the season was over so we let them have the whole back yard. They had about 1/4 acre.

Anyway, we had this tree we took down this year, and had piled the brush/branches of the tree along the back fence, but it was far enough away that the girls loved to get back behind the brush and look for bugs. They also used this to hide when hawks would come so we thought they would be fine.

What we DIDN't think about...was the fact that some of the brush was so full that they couldn't hide, but instead would get stuck.

Yesterday morning, I kept hearing one of the girls calling out. I just figured they were being noisy which they sometimes do and went on about my day.

Hours later, I heard the same call, and this time my gut told me something was wrong.

When I went toward the call, a huge hawk came out from behind those branches and took off, landing on our house. I went deeper into the branches and found her, half eaten alive.

I can't tell you how hard it was to pull that girl from the branches, her wing completely gone except for bones. She actually walked around the yard a bit until I put her into our time out pen.

The other girls were all still hidden under some roses.

I called my husband crying, just absolutely feeling guilty that I didn't check on them hours earlier when I heard her crying out. She was being eaten for hours. Awful.

He came home and we had to put her down because the damage was so bad.

After that deed was done, I pulled the branches out and insisted they get burned this weekend. The girls went into their secure run for the rest of the day.

A little wile later, the next door neighbor came over because her husband saw the hawk sitting on TOP of the chicken coop, then over on our fence and a few other places, just terrorizing the girls. Most of them were in the coop at that point, afraid to come out.

It was a horrible day. These are our pets, and I never thought I would become so attached.

The moral of this story is this...have places they can run THRU not just under.

This weekend, we will be reinstalling their temporary fencing to keep their free range area limited. We will be creating several places for them to hide as well and putting up things that glimmer in hopes that it will keep the hawks away. Today they will spend the day in the run. I hate doing that to them, but until the hawk realizes the easy catch is not available (which could be never), I will do what I can.

Sorry this was so long.