It IS a hawk!!

I've dealt with a LOT of hawk where I live. No way to cover my run.
Federal law makes killing a hawk (any hawk) illegal without a permit.

However SCARING the hawk using non lethal methods IS legal. You can do things like shoot nerf darts at them and bottle rockets. Document it carefully and don't try to hit the bird with anything that could actually do more than bounce off of it harmlessly or makes a big BANG and a flash to scare it.

You can hang CDs from tree branches. They catch the light and reflect it in fast-moving patterns that hawks dislike. Try to attract crows and nesting jays if you can, both will drive hawks away aggressively. Any nesting wild bird may also act as an early warning system. You can also put up fake owls in the evening and move them occasionally. A good rooster, raised in hawk country, will help keep your girls safer than they would be on their own. Make sure your hens have lots of places to take cover under.

Document all this too, any effort you make, as well as any losses you receive. Document the hawk's presence as well. A couple photos of the birds in the trees, the defenses you put up, your deterrence efforts, etc. And 1-2 photos of each bird if you loose them. Try to keep track of how much the birds cost you as well.

If you loose birds and can prove that you've been trying to keep them safe with non-lethal methods, you can get federal money to reimburse you for the loss of your livestock.
If it becomes a severe problem such as it's hampering your ability to keep any birds and you have the previous documentation, you can apply for a permit to destroy or relocate the hawk.

But most of the time they fly off well before then.
 
Wow. Good thing they were inside. Your coop looks AMAZING. Did you build that?

Yes, built it a couple years ago and it's doing really well as far as keeping bad critters out. Gotta say though, I saw your video and you did hand to hand combat with your hawk...you win! :bow:thumbsup

Pretty sure my hawk was a young Cooper's hawk...we have lots of those here in Georgia.

The girls are certainly keeping a much sharper eye on the sky now the past few days...slightest hint of anything flying up there now and they alert and run.

They get to free range under close supervision for a couple hours every afternoon - just too many things around here that would love to get them!
 
Yes, built it a couple years ago and it's doing really well as far as keeping bad critters out. Gotta say though, I saw your video and you did hand to hand combat with your hawk...you win! :bow:thumbsup

Pretty sure my hawk was a young Cooper's hawk...we have lots of those here in Georgia.

The girls are certainly keeping a much sharper eye on the sky now the past few days...slightest hint of anything flying up there now and they alert and run.

They get to free range under close supervision for a couple hours every afternoon - just too many things around here that would love to get them!
Great job on the coop! Really, really beautiful. Honestly, I couldn't stand birds until we got chickens in July. Now, I'm kinda obsessed and we are thinking of expanding when we can and I think we should model it after yours.

And yeah, after that hawk incident, Beastie would even get concerned when he saw airplanes. But that's good. He's a young rooster and he was willing to take on that hawk. In my head, I punched it. In reality, it was in my face and I slapped it, haha. I WISH I had slapped it into that tree next to me.. And I started letting them free range only when I was there..... with a tennis racquet. Also here, too many thing want a chicken dinner. Of course, now we have had snow on the ground for over a week, they tried it once and went back inside.
 
Great job on the coop! Really, really beautiful. Honestly, I couldn't stand birds until we got chickens in July. Now, I'm kinda obsessed and we are thinking of expanding when we can and I think we should model it after yours.

If you need any pics or have questions on the construction just email me and I can send them to you offline. It wasn't cheap and it took awhile, but I'm 99.999% sure nothing can get in there and it helps me sleep at night not worrying about them.
 
If you need any pics or have questions on the construction just email me and I can send them to you offline. It wasn't cheap and it took awhile, but I'm 99.999% sure nothing can get in there and it helps me sleep at night not worrying about them.
Will do, thank you! It looks perfect. Mine is pretty tight predator wise, knock on wood. But we built it for 6 and it could fit 8 or so, but we are thinking a few more than that and want them to have room. I included an electric fence and have wonderful videos of the woodland predators that killed my neighbor's chickens getting shocked and running away...
 
i once physically caught a hawk. i let it go of course but it was after a dove i had. the dove was in a chicken wire pen which was up against the corner of my chickens' pen and the hawk got stuck between the wire. and my dove was fine. my little sebright warned me it was there as i was coming up to feed them. i think i lost one of my sebrights to hawk recently. i'm not sure. i found a pile of feathers and a couple of bones in the coop one morning and whatever it was didn't come back. pretty sure i lost half of last years chicks to a hawk too. they kept finding their way out of the pen.
 
Shadow, I also accidentally caught a hawk once. It got into my chicken wire chicken tractor with three adult (like 6mo) cornish crosses and got lightly trampled. When I lifted the tractor they all scattered, but the hawk was so stunned he wouldn't fly. I have a 6' fence around my lawn and had to carry him out of my lawn to keep him off my much more vulnerable egg hens and to free up my lawn for my dogs and also so I could round up the now scattered CXs. So I went to the hawk with blulejeans doubled over my arms. hands, grabbed his feet and carried him out of my lawn and he went and hid under a bush. About 20 minutes later I went to check on him and he flew off.

This was mid january first thing in the morning, too. I did all of this in my jammies. 9_9;
 

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