Hawk Proof? Humph!!!!!!!

[MoonShadows]

After limiting where the chickens can free range and still losing another to a hawk the other day, I decided to try something that would further limit the hawk's glide path...short of completely fencing off the top of this large area....flagging tape. Let's see what happens...

 

[Mini Horses]

Dang, I'm sorry for you & your hen.

I've read that such things help. Even seen that fishing line will work but, heck, I can't even see that and go with something I can visualize.

I feel the wildlife need to be fed BUT -- can't they just take the rodents and wild grasses?????? I know there is plenty of that next to me, yet chickens & my pasture grass (deer). It appears a fox carted one of my roos off 2 days ago........based on the trail of feathers, etc.

Let us know if you see any results. AND we need to train the birds to stay UNDER something. I'm working on their summer shade areas now....never had issues before the one they had got blown apart with a wind storm. Of course, it ibecomes a favorite dusting area but that's OK......I can add dirt, ashes & DE as needed.

 

[MoonShadows]

I get angry when one of the hawks gets a hen, but then they are just hawks being hawks.

I am going to make a few pallet shade huts for the summer. They love dust bathing in the old compost pallet bins I have down there.

 

[lcertuche]

I saw somewhere someone had strung a few fishing lines over their coop. Apparently the birds can see it just enough they don't trust it and stay out. My birds roam free all the time and many years ago I lost a couple to hawks but most were to wiley to get caught. One did get her back shaved bare. It looked pretty funny until the feathers grew back. I'm not saying it won't happen but I see them hiding under thick brush/low lying tree limbs when they are flying over head.

 

[Hinotori]

I have netting over the pens. The silkies never get unsupervised free range. The old, large fowl girls are pretty vigilant about hawks after losses the first 2 years. It's coyotes and neighbor dogs that get any now

 

[MoonShadows]

I didn't know about the fishing line, but then again, they have "eyes like a hawk".

If the flagging tape fails, we'll have to raise the perimeter polls and use netting in this area.

 

[baymule]

Hope it works!

 

[sumi]

I hope that works! It sucks losing birds to hawks, or any predator really. I lost two that I know off, years ago and some close shaves. One day a hawk came after a broody and newly hatched chicks. That hen beat the tar out of the hawk! Loved that girl, she didn't take crap from no-one.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

We have plenty of hawks here, but I've never lost a bird to them that I know of. Years ago we had an owl that thought we were the buffet. I had some bantams that would roost on a fence under a security light. They were slowly disappearing and I couldn't figure it out because there was no carcass, no feathers, nothing to indicate what happened. One night I got up to go to the bathroom and looked out the window just in time to see a HUGE owl swoop down and neatly pluck one of those birds off the fence and glide away. I was like !! Moved them into the barn every night after that...

 

[lcertuche]

So far since I moved here the only losses have been from our dogs. When my husband came home a couple of days ago to the dogs savagely attacking the chickens. Before he kept saying "Give the dogs a chance."...until he saw it in person. Problem solved.