I turned my back for a minute and WHOA!

[cmom]

When I had my first flock around 50 years ago, the birds roamed free and went into their coop at night. We didn't have the predator problem that we have now. I don't remember loosing any birds to predators back then. I'm sure there were predators, but they never went after our birds. My first flock was Leghorns and there were plenty of trees in the yard and around their coop.

 

[CalBickieMomma]

It's the same situation here. I'm living in the house that I grew up in where we have all of our animals chickens pigs stuffed turkeys pigs and rabbits etc.
Then it was very rare for a hawk or any predator to come and take up our chickens and as you said I neighbors and all of our chickens roamed free roosting in the trees. Now it's like a free-for-all chicken buffet here.
Go get a squirrel!

Seriously. I mean, c’mon, Birds of Prey. Have you seen all the gopher holes in our yard???

 

[MidGaMarine]

I see we have some fairly new members,
One day I was free ranging the birds and was out in our blueberries which is next to the coops. One of the birds followed me into the blueberries. The next thing I remember was a hawk had swooped down and did kill my bird. She was only about 10 feet away from me. The hawk didn't carry her off but I was yelling and screaming and the hawk took off. It happened so fast. I didn't see the hawk and apparently the other birds didn't either because no one made a sound. Another time my husband was cutting some wood on his table saw that was next to a small temporary pen I would put the chicks in. This also happened so fast there wasn't any time to react, a hawk came down and grabbed one of the chicks. Now if I use the temporary pen I make sure I cover it. All of my pens have netting over them to protect the birds from aerial predators.

What netting do you have? I ordered some from Amazon and when I opened it it was like the size of horse hair. I sent it right back.

 

[MidGaMarine]

So far I haven’t had a “bird of prey” attack. But I have counted up to 8 hawks circling my pen. I have a Brahma rooster and a rir rooster that wanna the hens and they scatter when he warns them. I have also put up some cd’s on a string to kinda scare off the hawks, so far so good.

So the CDs work? I had an older farmer tell me that I need to kill that hawk and hang it from a tree. I told him, "if you get him, feel free to hang it."

 

[slordaz]

What netting do you have? I ordered some from Amazon and when I opened it it was like the size of horse hair. I sent it right back.

Thanks for the warning I was thinking I needed to get some lol

 

[MidGaMarine]

First I tried the CD's on fishing line over my pens. At the time it was an owl that had killed some of my birds. I have 2 coops that are open on one side. The owls just flew right in. After I discovered what was killing my birds I put netting up covering all of the pens. This picture was before I put the fishing line up.
View attachment 1893837

Wow

 

[cmom]

Some netting is kind of pricey. I found mine on eBay. I put in a max bid and got the netting. I needed 200 feet x 60 feet. The piece I bought was 200' x 50'. I did get some of the finer netting to fill in the 10' gap.