I started a new thread about hawks in general but I would love to know free ranger advice...what the heck do you do?We had a serious run in with a hawk yesterday. I ONLY have a coop. No run yet. My plan was to only use coop for roosting and free range during day. So far it has worked out well, until yesterday.
I wish I could do that! Some of mine lay as late as four or five pm. So I let them out when the sun is well up, and do my best to make the nest box area enticing, so they do mostly come back there to lay their eggs. We have about three acres in central Mexico for them to roam on, with lots of scrubby, thorny bushes and trees for them to hide under when Pierre sounds the alarm. There is the occasional hawk or eagle during the day and although we have coyotes in the area, they never come too close to the house. For about a year I was leaving the coop door open so they could go out early, but I've stopped doing that since there are dogs that might be predators out in the countryside. Our five dogs are trained not to bother the chickens, which really was not that hard to do - in fact our pit bull cross will leap into the air if a hawk or raven swoops down too low.
Sounds almost like you are talking about my place, my birds (except I also have geese) and my predators. I am just north of Coleman, TX. How are you dealing with this cold snap? My birds seem to not even notice, except the duck did want to go back inside their pens earlier than usual. Otherwise you would not even know it was in the 30's.Whew! I finally made it through every post of this wonderful thread!I was so happy to find this thread, and have NO idea how I didn't come across it sooner. I free range my birds as well (chickens and ducks). Not as "free" as some people are able to. But they have the run of a HUGE back yard at the moment, and I am working on fencing the rest of our land to let them out into it as well. (We have about 1 acre, total.) We have hawks and some kind of huge vultures or buzzards. The big ones did some flybys a few times when I first started letting my girls and boys out of their runs. But the kids were all very quick to hide under the small coop (up a few feet off the ground), under the porch, or under the gigantic pomegranate bush that they love. No losses so far (knock on wood). Though I am very nervous that there could be when I get the rest of the area fenced and let them onto it. We have seen a pair of foxes in the wee hours of the morning, and there is occasionally a bobcat. But there is SO much forage out there for them, that I want to take advantage of it. The mesquite trees seem to attract ungodly numbers of walking sticks, and the chicks LOVE walking sticks. (I call them chicky french fries.) There are also lots of ant hills out there still. The ladies LOVE ant eggs as well. There are no longer ants in the chicken yard. Sometimes some will sneak in and set up a hill beneath a water bucket. But they don't last long when I move the bucket and call the chicks. You'd think it was a candy bag!
We have a couple feral cats that I allow to hang around to keep down rodents. They were born under our house and grew up with the chickens, and now seem to think they are as much chicken as cat. They don't bother the chickens at all, even when I've had broody mamas and chicks out with the flock. Sometimes I even see them laying there while the chickens cluster around them pecking at their fur. I think maybe picking fleas? I HAVE seen some big ole' toms come around and try to stalk my birds. But they got a quick and unceremonious introduction to the Snake Charmer (shotgun) and haven't been a problem since.
