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allosaurusrock:
ourfamfarm:
We’ve lost half of our first flock due to predators. Two birds have been taken within the last week. I’ve seen some hawks and that has to be what’s taking them during the day. We aren’t going to let them free range for awhile and keep them secure in their run.
I hate that they can free range. They love being able to go wherever they want. But this is a huge problem. We feel awful. I know you can’t prevent everything but we’re down to 6 birds from our flock of 12.
Yes we have 16 more waiting to go outside, but it still sucks losing them. I know it won’t be the last either. Any suggestions for hawks?
Make sure you’ve got some good roosters
The #1 suggestion for hawks is not to free-range, alas. But it’s not your only choice. You may need to switch to a less free option, though– maybe not totally free-range, but rather a mobile enclosure of some sort, to make sure they range in safer areas.
#2, good roosters, as allosaurus says. Experienced roosters help. My sister’s farm runs about 350 hens in a pastured operation– meaning, they have an electro-mesh fence that is set up around them, and they’re in a wheeled house that gets moved every couple of days and the fence set up again afterward, and the chickens can get out of the fence sometimes but most of them don’t and at night they roost inside the wheeled house. I have watched them alert to hawks a couple of times, and what happens is that all the hens run under the house, and the roosters crouch under the edges of the house watching out. We always hear the roosters alerting. We’re going to (I’m sorry if this is upsetting, but it’s a commercial operation so we can’t avoid it) cull the flock this spring but we’re saving some of the roosters to teach the new generation of hens. (Part of commercial chicken raising is taking responsibility for your spent hens, so we are; they’ll be put to a variety of uses. I’m really not trying to be upsetting, I know a lot of backyard chicken types get upset about this, but on this kind of scale we just have to.) We’ve actually had some local backyard farmer friends ask, and it may be that every one of our roosters gets rehomed, and some of the younger hens, because they’re very experienced free-rangers and while chickens aren’t geniuses, they can learn important skills if they live long enough. Our biggest, oldest rooster is actually being low-key squabbled over by a couple of our neighbors because he *is* so good– he has a great personality, he’s not friendly but he’s not hostile, he’s watchful but understands humans are benign, and we’ve personally witnessed him launch himself at a hawk, successfully. (His name is Fabio and he’s bright gold and enormous, and he was a rescue so we don’t know what kind he is. We’re going to let him retire to someone’s backyard, though. He is the only named chicken on the farm.)
#3 This may seem counterintuitive but pasturage that’s away from trees. If there’s a lovely fringe of overhanging trees, hawks have a safe place to watch from and retreat to. Also, if there are trees overhanging, the chickens can’t see the hawks coming. This past season we had the least lossage we ever have, because we put the chicken houses way out in a former corn field. It kept predation down from hawks during the day, and owls at night, and we know we have a couple of really chicken-loving owls because they were merciless to our broiler chickens during the same time period. The broiler chickens are in a smaller field– since they can’t walk well, they get far less territory; they have to be kept in pens with roofs since they don’t notice hawks, but owls will land on the pens and pull the chickens through the mesh in their sleep. (This is as gross and upsetting as it sounds.)
#4 a good hiding spot for the chickens. This would probably only work with a somewhat restricted ability to free range, but. If they always know where they can safely hide, then they’re more likely to survive. If they have to find a spot to hide quickly, they may not choose somewhere that’s actually safe. Combine that with no overhanging trees or nearby cover for hawks, and you’re in a better situation, I think.
When I was a little kid we had free-range chickens and never lost any to hawks but we had, I think, the exact opposite situation: the chickens were actively *in* a forest, and there was no open sky, so the hawks couldn’t hunt them. We lost them all, every one of them, to weasels eventually, though, so. Raccoons and weasels, who spent years in an arms race with us picking the locks on the chicken coop to get in. (Raccoons will take what they need. Weasels will kill as many as they feel like, for fun. At last, they killed every one. That’s the tradeoff for being inaccessible to hawks…)
(Your picture was not posted)
allosaurusrock:
ourfamfarm:
We’ve lost half of our first flock due to predators. Two birds have been taken within the last week. I’ve seen some hawks and that has to be what’s taking them during the day. We aren’t going to let them free range for awhile and keep them secure in their run.
I hate that they can free range. They love being able to go wherever they want. But this is a huge problem. We feel awful. I know you can’t prevent everything but we’re down to 6 birds from our flock of 12.
Yes we have 16 more waiting to go outside, but it still sucks losing them. I know it won’t be the last either. Any suggestions for hawks?
Make sure you’ve got some good roosters
The #1 suggestion for hawks is not to free-range, alas. But it’s not your only choice. You may need to switch to a less free option, though– maybe not totally free-range, but rather a mobile enclosure of some sort, to make sure they range in safer areas.
#2, good roosters, as allosaurus says. Experienced roosters help. My sister’s farm runs about 350 hens in a pastured operation– meaning, they have an electro-mesh fence that is set up around them, and they’re in a wheeled house that gets moved every couple of days and the fence set up again afterward, and the chickens can get out of the fence sometimes but most of them don’t and at night they roost inside the wheeled house. I have watched them alert to hawks a couple of times, and what happens is that all the hens run under the house, and the roosters crouch under the edges of the house watching out. We always hear the roosters alerting. We’re going to (I’m sorry if this is upsetting, but it’s a commercial operation so we can’t avoid it) cull the flock this spring but we’re saving some of the roosters to teach the new generation of hens. (Part of commercial chicken raising is taking responsibility for your spent hens, so we are; they’ll be put to a variety of uses. I’m really not trying to be upsetting, I know a lot of backyard chicken types get upset about this, but on this kind of scale we just have to.) We’ve actually had some local backyard farmer friends ask, and it may be that every one of our roosters gets rehomed, and some of the younger hens, because they’re very experienced free-rangers and while chickens aren’t geniuses, they can learn important skills if they live long enough. Our biggest, oldest rooster is actually being low-key squabbled over by a couple of our neighbors because he *is* so good– he has a great personality, he’s not friendly but he’s not hostile, he’s watchful but understands humans are benign, and we’ve personally witnessed him launch himself at a hawk, successfully. (His name is Fabio and he’s bright gold and enormous, and he was a rescue so we don’t know what kind he is. We’re going to let him retire to someone’s backyard, though. He is the only named chicken on the farm.)
#3 This may seem counterintuitive but pasturage that’s away from trees. If there’s a lovely fringe of overhanging trees, hawks have a safe place to watch from and retreat to. Also, if there are trees overhanging, the chickens can’t see the hawks coming. This past season we had the least lossage we ever have, because we put the chicken houses way out in a former corn field. It kept predation down from hawks during the day, and owls at night, and we know we have a couple of really chicken-loving owls because they were merciless to our broiler chickens during the same time period. The broiler chickens are in a smaller field– since they can’t walk well, they get far less territory; they have to be kept in pens with roofs since they don’t notice hawks, but owls will land on the pens and pull the chickens through the mesh in their sleep. (This is as gross and upsetting as it sounds.)
#4 a good hiding spot for the chickens. This would probably only work with a somewhat restricted ability to free range, but. If they always know where they can safely hide, then they’re more likely to survive. If they have to find a spot to hide quickly, they may not choose somewhere that’s actually safe. Combine that with no overhanging trees or nearby cover for hawks, and you’re in a better situation, I think.
When I was a little kid we had free-range chickens and never lost any to hawks but we had, I think, the exact opposite situation: the chickens were actively *in* a forest, and there was no open sky, so the hawks couldn’t hunt them. We lost them all, every one of them, to weasels eventually, though, so. Raccoons and weasels, who spent years in an arms race with us picking the locks on the chicken coop to get in. (Raccoons will take what they need. Weasels will kill as many as they feel like, for fun. At last, they killed every one. That’s the tradeoff for being inaccessible to hawks…)
(Your picture was not posted)
