Why do Magpies swoop my chickens?

[nzpouter]

same as ours.. but we got the white backed...

 

[Ducklove334]

Magpies,crows,jays,ravens,rooks, grackles, are all in the same family, they are VERY smart birds. they are the straight-billed parrots, if you will, they have IMMENSE problem solving skills, and can make their own games, they are simply playing with the chickens, they will not hurt them.

I had a blue jay once, who liked to "play" with the sparrows at my grandfathers house, I fed the birds, this big jay, probably the male, would often attack the sparrows and pin them down, pick them up in his beak, and just throw them, the poor little panicked things would fly off and sometimes run into things LOL, once time the blue jays gave a robin a heart attack I think, they were terrorizing it, and it just fell down dead

, no wounds or anything.

I Absolutely LOVE blue jays,crows,and the like, they are very pretty, and very smart, smarter than us I think.

 

[djbarnes]

Be careful when people say "Magpies will not hurt your chickens" I just lost a month old chick to a magpie. I let it out to free range, and went away for 30 seconds, when i came back a Magpie had killed one of my chicks. Not nice at all...

 

[gsim]

We all would do well to remember that baby chicks are prey for nearly everything. Otherwise harmless black snakes kill and eat them. I've read several reports on this forum of them being killed and eaten by crows. Magpies, rooks, ravens, etc would all do the same. Until they are at least half grown, I'd never allow my chooks to free range. In fact, we don't allow ours any free range being as their run is nearly 2,000 sq ft. I would like to let them range outside, but red tailed hawks, a neighbor's dog, and the occasional coyote are good reasons for me not to do that. They seem to be quite contented though and by the marvelous tasting eggs we get from them, we have to be doing something right.

Before I installed the overhead netting (4 losses to the same red tailed hawk) if one got over that 6 ft fence, she would simply stay within a few feet of the fence and work her way around the run looking for clover and bugs. I took that to mean that the five times I saw this happen shows that they are contented and not desiring to be away from their run. Curious and desiring clover and a bug or two, yes.

I had a cripple who I took out once and loosed in our fenced garden. She wasn't too interested in being there and instead hopped toward the end of the garden closest to her run, flew to the top of that fence (6 ft) and perched there, staring toward the run and her flock mates. So I put her back in and never took her out of there again.

It is just too risky here to practice true free ranging.

 

[leedle1965]

I had a magpie fly into my run through the open man door then through the little chicken door into the coop and steal a baby chick (about 8 weeks old)from its mom.

 

[SirOfSilkies]

....? Why would you free range a chick ?

 

[KatiewithZena]

Quote:

True that DDawn The maggies in australia only seem to be a nuisance when its Spring when they have eggs and chicks. I don't know about any other species. Kids in Australia make icecream container hats and paint big eyes on the back of them, this is ment to stop the maggies from swooping them because if a magpie can see you looking at it ,it won,t swoop you.
I put a pic in of what Australian magpies look like.

Hi Kezabel, I'm here in Victoria Australia and it's autumn, and yesterday I witnessed 2 magpies swoop down and and contanstly harasss my 4 silkie chickens, I ran out arms flying to scare them away, I didn't know if they could or would hurt them or not. It was quite the commotion!!! I'm glad I was there! My poor little babies....