Sponsored Post Protecting your chickens from predators in your backyard!

[Michaels1715]

Anyone else think it's fishy that this is this guy's first post? Just sayin'.

I know what you're saying, but I don't think so. I have seen some reviews that were obviously biased, but I don't think that's the case here. The biased reviews are ususally more elaborate. Besides, there are a few more posts by that person now.
Have a wonderful day!

 

[applefalls]

I would love to see a plan for these skeletons! They are great scarecrows and very cute. They work against hawks? We've had a hawk come kill a chicken and we were not able to scare the hawk again. The bold nature of the hawk, despite us screaming and throwing things at it, is what alarms me most. Since it is a federal offense to kill the hawk (and we are in a suburban neighborhood) we felt powerless. My chickens have been cooped up ever since, and the hawk is lingering.

 

[Michaels1715]

I would be interested in a product like this. We had already planned on motion sensor light on the coop, but the red eyes and high pitched alarm sounds interesting. I wouldnt be willing to pay $100 though. With an electrician for a husband, we can rig something similar up for way less than that, which I think I might do. If it were a little cheaper, say $40 Id buy it instead of go to the trouble of rigging one up ourselves.

My only concern is my parrots - I imagine they wouldnt appreciate the ear peircing sound anymore than an owl or other predator, and they are often outdoors in an aviary through the summer months. I might skip that step.

When you said you were worried about your parrots, it made me wonder about the chickens. Would the noise bother them?

 

[QuakerMom]

Hawks are the main one for me(raccoons, opposums and dogs, though they have never killed one of my chickens).

Closing the coop door at night, lots of natural shelter(pine trees, etc) and watching the chickens frequently are ways to keep my girls safe.

Could you say more about your environment vis-a-vis the hawks? Are you rural, suburban, big lot or small? how big is the pasture/foraging area? Will hawks take out a full-grown bird, or mainly just when they are little? We have hawks in our neighborhood, but our lot is quite small -- total width of our property is only 40', and the area of the chicken yard will be about 20 or 25 by 8 or 10, maybe L-shaped. Some tall-ish thin trees on one side, about 3 feet away -- but the trees will have to be outside the fence, as they are on the property line.. Is this good or bad for the hawks? Don't they need a fair bit of open space to zoom in and land? I'm just trying to figure this all out and want to plan for it before building/siting the coop, but I don't want to get over paranoid before I even start.

Thanks for any info!

 

[QuakerMom]

Hawks have been my most damaging predator, but I have found a way to keep them at bay. I use lightweight aluminum fence wire. It is not hooked up to an electrical source, but I string it across my chickens run. I have 6 different runs that are various sizes. I string it horizontally, like a clothesline about every 4 feet on the big lot and about every 2 feet on the bantam lots. It is not visible enough to be tacky looking, but the hawks stay clear. I've been doing this for 2 years now without a hawk attack. They fly around the farm and look, but they continue on their merry way hunting for mice and other valuable prey. It really makes me happy for my chickens to be safe and for the hawks to be able to do their job as well. Works like a charm!

Another lady told me she uses a similar system, only with fishing line, and it seems to me she said it's about 4" apart, not 4'. I wonder if 4' would work with the fishing line too?

 

[ParadiseFoundFarm]

I raise large fowl for many years, free ranged in a 1 acre movable enclosure surrounded by Premire1 electric net fencing without overhead protection over the most of it and all this is in a 10 acre meadow surrounded by forest preserve. I have a chicken tractor capable of holding all 50 birds at 1 time that they can run into. 2 to 3 large cocks roam with the hens at any given time. Throughout the enclosure I have areas they can run under for shelter from attack from above or just the sun. These also move around daily. My area, gratefully, does not have bob cats, cougars, bears. We have coyote, skunk, opossum, stray dogs, hawks and raccoons.
I have lost 2 pullets to hawks in a strange manner. While integrating the flock I had the pullets within a smaller enclosure with a roof over it covering all but 1 square foot. A hawk landed on the roof, jumped down into the enclosure, killed and ate the pullet right there in front of it's buddies who escaped further within where the hawk could not go. My head cock was visibly shaken and had hurt himself trying to get into the enclosure to get at the hawk. (The sub-dominate cocks were hiding with the hens). The other pullet was taken in the yard by a swooping run by the hawk and carried off. These were both daytime attacks.
The hawks have never since tried anything with my flock of adults. I'm supposing a big fluffy Ameraucana looks too big for them to carry and the cocks are doing their job in warning.
The farm down the way has LPDs (2) and a device like this one but I don't know if it's the same one and he's mostly a dooffuss, I've never seen it blink and don't know it he's got it even charged up. They have smaller, free ranging, mutt chickens that mostly look like stunted, gamey, RIRs, larger guineas, goats and cattle. They lose a lot to the predators including hawks. They have no electric fencing but lots of cover which doesn't move.
I guess what we can all take from this is that you need perimeter fencing to keep the walking crawling slithering things out, move and rearrange your setup often to confuse predators, keep enough large predator aggressive cocks in with the silly hens, and smaller birds need overhead protection.

 

[aoxa]

My predator protection in training...

Still have a while to go, but I have high hopes! I would try this if it worked for hawks. I'm not too worried about ground predators as my coop and run is secure. I am moving to a more rural setting this weekend, so I will keep this in mind if we have any ill feelings about our set-up.

 

[Bunnieart]

I have a similar one of these, only blinking lights. We have all kinds of predators here: fox, coyote, bear, hawks, raccoons, possums, and dogs. Our problem is not at night...it's during the day when they are away from the coop. I recently found out fox are not nocturnal...but run both day and night. I loose most of my flock during the daytime hours. We live on 106 acres, half pasture the other half trees and cut over (the cut over provides lots of wildlife 'refuge') Though the chickens don't range all the acres, they do range about 30 or so. Any suggestions other than making them a smaller area to range?

 

[K-12 Chickens]

Could you say more about your environment vis-a-vis the hawks? Are you rural, suburban, big lot or small? how big is the pasture/foraging area? Will hawks take out a full-grown bird, or mainly just when they are little? We have hawks in our neighborhood, but our lot is quite small -- total width of our property is only 40', and the area of the chicken yard will be about 20 or 25 by 8 or 10, maybe L-shaped. Some tall-ish thin trees on one side, about 3 feet away -- but the trees will have to be outside the fence, as they are on the property line.. Is this good or bad for the hawks? Don't they need a fair bit of open space to zoom in and land? I'm just trying to figure this all out and want to plan for it before building/siting the coop, but I don't want to get over paranoid before I even start.

Thanks for any info!

I am rural and have woodland/meadow areas surrounding the area. I used to free-range my hens, but after the hawk and dogs that roam around, I've kept them in a fairly large run that is uncovered. Yes, I had an immature Red-Tailed Hawk take one of my adult chickens(Snowbell, my California Grey Leghorn hen), though he/she never got a chance to eat her as I ran outside before he/she could. If the trees near your run aren't very large, the hawks probably wouldn't use them for hunting. Hawks like bare branches and dead trees to perch on, so if the trees near your run are very leafy and don't have a lot of large branches, the hawks might not want to perch there(except during winter and fall, when the trees are bare). A hawk doesn't need a lot of space to capture prey; if they are perching on a branch, they can dive right down onto a chicken. What species of hawks to you have in your area? The most common ones you would have to watch out for are:

Cooper's Hawk- Medium size, long tail, grayish blue back and head and rusty striped underparts. During flight has a distinctive flight pattern--flaps its wings and glides repeated over and over

Red-Tailed Hawk-Large size, brown back, short, brick red tail, has brown speckled band around belly in adult and immature, has distinctive call "keeeyer!"

(any hawk of similar size you should watch out for also)

 

[johncv]

i have guinea birds that protect my flock. i have not lost a single chick yet and let them free range during the day and sometimes at night. my guineas are my alarm system anything that is not normal they let me know right away and my chicks know to get inside the coop. my guineas will fight whatever comes on my property from snakes to hogs.