OMG! A hawk.

[yorklady]

We just left our hens and rooster out for some range time. Sweetie Girl, my one red star, came into the living room for some cracked corn as she normally does. I still had the french doors to the deck open and I heard a noise. I looked out and there was a hawk on the deck rail. I screamed "hawk"! Both dogs started barking, Sweetie Girl flew into the dining room, Hubby ran onto the deck and shooed the hawk away! The hawk was definitely smaller than our hens and rooster but I wonder if he still could have gotten one of the hens? Brewster now has all his hens at the coop and he looks like he is standing guard though I don't know if he even saw the hawk. Is there a way to keep hawks away?

 

[terryg]

I have a hawk problem, too - there's a nesting pair of red tails every year right in the woods next to my house. Hawks will take roosters as well as hens, and they'll go after big as well as the bantam birds. Unless you have a good guard dog your hens are not safe. In my case, I've put hawk netting over their run. Or, you can criss-cross string and hang CDs over the run (the sun shoots light from the CDs and deters hawks and sparrows.) I only let my hens out when I'm watching, and even then I've had a hawk swoop in front of me. If your hens have brushy cover where they free range they might be a bit safer.

 

[Ted n Ms]

In the forty's my dad had tall poles set around for hawks to perch on. Of coarse there was a steel trap wired on top of it.

 

[Oregon Blues]

Ted N M's dad personally brought us all the strict federal legislation against killing raptors.

 

[Ted n Ms]

In the 1940's there was no federal legislation on killing raptors. Legislation came after DDT. Back then people done what was necessary to have food to eat. Times were hard.

 

[centrarchid]

In the 1940's there was no federal legislation on killing raptors. Legislation came after DDT. Back then people done what was necessary to have food to eat. Times were hard.

I am pretty sure back in those days farmers took a more integrated approach, at least those producing multiple species free-range. Those from my home area kept hogs, cattle, and sometimes sheep while chickens operated in barnyard and hedge rows. With commercial poultry efforts, like my grandmothers hatching egg operation, birds often had all of a given area to themselves before such production moved indoors so management was a bit different. Outdoors, fencing, dogs, hunting and management of trees close to free-range poultry helped keep losses to a minimum. Hawks took a few but losses to them where much less than what would be realized if managament efforts would not have been expended on foxes and raccoons which are a much bigger deal than the hawks. I do know my forefathers killed hawks pretty regularly but my grandfather could at least relate to me situations where hawks were problematic and when not. From that and personal experience, I feel comfortable keeping birds free-range with very minimal losses under conditions where hawks densities are probably higher that what my forefathers experienced.

The voodoo that seems to work is dog, cover, mixed gender with some adult males, and a little vigilance.

 

[sourland]

In the 1940's there was no federal legislation on killing raptors. Legislation came after DDT. Back then people done what was necessary to have food to eat. Times were hard.

Pole traps, back in the day, were an effective way of catching and eliminating raptors at the crime scene.