Incident with a Hawk

[eveliens]

I live in the city and let my chickens free-range in the yard during the day. I was aware aerial predators and cats were the biggest concern, as we don't have coons/foxes/snakes/coyotes and the fence is a 6 ft privacy fence so no badly behaved dogs either. The area has Coopers, harris and red tailed hawks along with crows, but my yard is specifically territory to several pairs of nasty little divebombing songbirds, so I never see them in or near the yard. This morning one of the hawks must have spotted the chickens from a few houses over and took a go thinking it could do a grab and fly without being attacked.

It didn't end well.

For the hawk.

From what I can gather, chicken ran in the pen for protection, hawk ran after the chicken, chicken doubled back running out of the pen, hawk didn't understand where he was or what was going on and got stuck. We did manage to wrangle him out and he was OK despite his unfortunate encounter with the wire although he was promptly attacked by the songbirds after we freed him. Additionally all the chickens are also safe - half of them dove under the kayak and the other half hid under the ping pong table. They seem to understand it provides better protection to go under manmade things rather than bushes (there is lots of cover in the yard).

Not how I was expecting to start my morning.

 

[sourland]

Hopefully it learned its lesson, but my gut instinct is that it will return. Be on high alert when your birds are free ranged.

 

[eveliens]

Hopefully it learned its lesson, but my gut instinct is that it will return. Be on high alert when your birds are free ranged.

I highly doubt he learned anything Hawks are notoriously dumb, especially young ones. I'm taking steps to hopefully deter him from taking a second go though.

In any case, my presence will definitely not deter the hawk - my housemate has seen the hawk go after wild mourning doves a few feet away from where he was standing and nearly got whacked with a wayward wing during the chase. They're not afraid of people. I'll have to take some more stringent measures and perhaps lock the little cluckers up for awhile, which I know they'll protest, while I mitigate some of the aerial predator risks.

 

[cmom]

A couple of times I had a hawk Kill a bird not 10 feet away from me. Once one went into a small temporary pen and grabbed a chick. All I could do was watch it fly off with my chick. Both times it happened so fast I didn't have time to react. All the predators you mentioned in your previous post are in the cities too they mainly roam at night under the cover of the darkness so you probably wouldn't notice them. They are everywhere. Good luck...

 

[eveliens]

A couple of times I had a hawk Kill a bird not 10 feet away from me. Once one went into a small temporary pen and grabbed a chick. All I could do was watch it fly off with my chick. Both times it happened so fast I didn't have time to react. All the predators you mentioned in your previous post are in the cities too they mainly roam at night under the cover of the darkness so you probably wouldn't notice them. They are everywhere. Good luck...

Yeah, I wasn't far when the hawk attacked this morning, hence how I got there so fast. They are fast and very good at what they're build to do. I'm fortunate my chickens were paying attention and knew how to evade him.

We have possums, outdoor/feral cats, [wood] rats and owls, but the chickens are locked up at night so it doesn't really matter. Foxes, coyotes, loose dogs have trouble navigating the fact everyone has 6ft privacy fences, so they stick to the outskirts, which are highly agricultural and more welcoming to them anyway. No raccoons thankfully. I used to live in the midwest, which had all of these and more, so I'm aware they roam at night and often during the day. Not uncommon to see coyotes trotting through the yard in the suburbs in broad daylight!

 

[cmom]

Last nights visitor. I see fox most nights on at least one of my cameras.

 

[eveliens]

The hawk returned with a friend this evening. I'd put up some plastic owls and constructed a covered run for the chickens since its last visit. Chickens were tucked in for the night this time and well out of his reach.

This ding-dong decided to fight the decoy owl! I'm pretty sure it was the same dumb hawk as before. He scared the poor quail to death with all the screaming and swooping. I had to go across the yard to shoo him and his new girlfriend off because he was very determined to show the owl who was boss. To be mean, I swapped the small plastic owl out for an even bigger owl I found at Lowe's and moved it from the original spot.

Should I be doing anything beyond the decoy owl and covered run? The chickens do occasionally still free-range when they slip out and I can't convince them freedom is worth giving up.

 

[Folly's place]

If your birds can get out of their run, anyone can get in! Plan to keep your flock in their SAFE coop and run for two or three weeks, until these visiting hawks give up and move on.
Being out there won't save your birds!
These might be youngsters, not smart, and trying their best to succeed.
Mary

 

[eveliens]

If your birds can get out of their run, anyone can get in! Plan to keep your flock in their SAFE coop and run for two or three weeks, until these visiting hawks give up and move on.
Being out there won't save your birds!
These might be youngsters, not smart, and trying their best to succeed.
Mary

Thank you. I appreciate the advice.