Trying to Foil a Red-Tailed Hawk

[BigBlueHen53]

It's actually my nails I'm biting...hope your girls figure out how to stay away from the hawk. After our eagle attack I had one hen turn rooster. lol She would stand in the doorway of one of the coops and give out a continuous alarm until everyone was safely inside somewhere. Lucky for us, eagles are big and not as agile as hawks, so all they need is to get in a shelter or under one.

Aww, thanks, @ValerieJ , that is so sweet of you! So far we have only sustained the one loss, so apparently what we are doing is working. Egg production is down a little, but not by much, so the girls are not terribly stressed! We went down from 12 eggs a day to 5, then 6, and now we are back up to 8, but the older girls are molting.

I hate keeping them penned up till mid-afternoon, but with the hawk out there, they are huddling anyway. It seems there is enough cover when they free-range to keep them safe, so that's good news. Tomorrow we'll give them the big pen and I'll keep an ear out for that distinctive hawk cry.... I can be very intimidating when I go out yelling and waving my cane, lol, especially with Gracie barking her fool head off!

 

[ValerieJ]

Aww, thanks, @ValerieJ I can be very intimidating when I go out yelling and waving my cane, lol, especially with Gracie barking her fool head off!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

So here are the little shelters we made for them today. We just used materials we had on hand. They are not pretty, but we hope they will be adequate. They will also provide shade.
Sigh, sorry the one pic posted twice. System glitch, apparently, and I could not delete it.

Anyway, by putting the fencing cylinders around the tables and sawhorses we hoped to foil the hawk. We might have to wrap them in sheets to make them effective, so the chooks know to get inside. What do you think?

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Yay, I fixed it in Edit mode!

 

[ValerieJ]

So here are the little shelters we made for them today. We just used materials we had on hand. They are not pretty, but we hope they will be adequate. They will also provide shade.
Sigh, sorry the one pic posted twice. System glitch, apparently, and I could not delete it.

Anyway, by putting the fencing cylinders around the tables and sawhorses we hoped to foil the hawk. We might have to wrap them in sheets to make them effective, so the chooks know to get inside. What do you think?

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It's not about how it looks! Now just to get the chickens to understand what you just gave them.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

@Shadrach, are we at all on the right track here? BTW, I liked what you said about "maintaining a chicken population." Made sense.

 

[Shadrach]

@Shadrach, are we at all on the right track here? BTW, I liked what you said about "maintaining a chicken population." Made sense.

No, not really.
I'll try to get something drawn up and photographed later today.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

No, not really.
I'll try to get something drawn up and photographed later today.

Oh well. Thanks, will appreciate it!

 

[MROO]

So here is the hen house and the little pen surrounding it to which they are confined today. I know it's tight for 18 hens and two roos! Fortunately they all get along nicely. But ... do you think in time the RTH will move on to easier pickings if he can't get to my birds?


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NOPE! Even if the hawk moves on for now, it'll be back to check on your pens periodically. They hunt a large territory, so they move around a lot, but rest assured, it'll be back.
It's time to start putting in either a covered run or some serious obstacles - bushes, benches, possibly a few wide stretches of chicken netting over the corners or staked in the middle of their "football field." I hate to sound blunt, but if you don't take some measures to protect them, you've just opened a veritable smorgasbord for the RTH and its' future family!

 

[AviansLove]

I've had 4 hawks in under 2 weeks! only 2 noticed my chickens but I didn't leave my chickens in the coops, they hid in the coop and the hawk only came back once, chased it off never saw it again, UNTIL yesterday I saw a few hawks, luckily, they didn't notice my chickens since they're coops are in the woods, guarded by trees, and they weren't in the field, they were under the trees! Thank god! Wasn't a red-tail though.