I caught a hawk in action eating my chicken

[bawkbawkbawk]

My DH keeps insisting the chickens are too big for hawks to deal with. I need to show him this thread.

What kind of hawks do you have? We have red-tailed, one made a run at my girls one day and luckily I shooed it away and they seem to have become more savvy about when to head to the pen. But I know it could end badly...

Oh, and my Golden Retriever was laying six feet away from the hens when it happened. She never budged.

Beautiful, but worthless.

 

[GallusGal]

A cooper's hawk used to come around our property, same time every year, and try to get our chickens back when I lived in NY. They were fenced in our side yard, not covered in a coop like they are now. I heard a horrible screech one day and saw my poor little old bantam roo Skoggi (who had bone cancer in his leg no less) all puffed up and ready to fight as the hawk made its second swoop (the hen had already taken cover). I startled it away in time to save him, but after that we had to be very careful. We found that hanging pie tins all around the perimeter of the enclosure helped. They would twirl in the wind, bounce light, etc. and the hawk always steered clear of it... wound up eating our neighbor's chooks instead

 

[mediazeal]

I lost a hen to a hawk this month as well. The hawks are nesting and very hungry.
It's seasonal for them to be this aggressive but of course they are around all year here. I had no problems with them the other 3 seasons.
I was supervising last night as they scratched around for an hour since they have been penned up for most of the month and a kestrel came and sat in the tree over their coop. I had to throw things at it to make it go away.
sorry for your loss.