my girls are being stalked by a hawk

[winniem]

For good reason...a couple of weeks ago it got one of my sweet leghorns. I saw it flying away from her body. Yesterday I pulled in my driveway and it was perched high up in the tree across the street. It is still there today and now the girls are on lock down. Please tell me these hawks eventually get bored and move on?!

I was able to grab my camera and get a couple of pictures:

 

[JanetS]

Nope. It will stay around waiting for another chance for a chicken dinner. Sorry for your loss. We lost a hen to a bobcat back in January but we are still getting pictures of the bobcat on our game camera. We no longer let our chickens free range to keep them safe. Good luck.

 

[Crazy Chick]

It won't go away as long as you have chickens so I suggest you make a coop and a closed run with some plywood all around it from the ground to a little over chicken head height. I've also heard of getting some kind of license from some animal control or something like that to kill the hawk. Just DO NOT kill it with out any official consent because you will go to jail and pay a HUGE fine

 

[centrarchid]

Unless hawk is already catching chickens, it is their foremost interest to catch small rodents so it will not move on. On bright side, if its concern is provisioning nest, then smaller prey which are easier to pack will be preferentially taken to feed offspring. Their chicks should be hatching real soon if not already done. This time of year rodents are extremely easy to catch and red-tails want easy. For me, adult red-tails this time of year are not a problem. Last years chick red-tails not breeding will be more inclined to take larger prey because not concerned about hauling catch back to a nest..

 

[winniem]

It won't go away as long as you have chickens so I suggest you make a coop and a closed run with some plywood all around it from the ground to a little over chicken head height. I've also heard of getting some kind of license from some animal control or something like that to kill the hawk. Just DO NOT kill it with out any official consent because you will go to jail and pay a HUGE fine

planning to "shoot" with the camera only

 

[Crazy Chick]

I

planning to "shoot" with the camera only

I was reading one time that you can have some kind of license to actually kill it if it was harming your animals but it was probably false info

 

[ozarkchicks]

do you have a dog? a lot of time dogs can keep hawks away pretty well