As I wrote previously, I've been wondering what's been partially eating my chickens. Here's suspect #1: A hawk. Well, looking a little further.... (double click on the pictures for a bigger version)
Two Hawks! look at the left edge of this next photo. Maybe a mated pair. Looks like I might have a permanent problem. I do remove coyotes that prey on livestock, but I don't kill hawks or eagles. Looks like we might have to go on lockdown.
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4 comments:
Ow, they look like they are enjoying their meal! :-0 Have you ever had some mean and nasty geese on your place? Maybe that would be enough to deter medium sized predatory birds?
Michelle
I guess the hawks are getting desperate this time of year! About a week ago I lost my favorite chicken (I only have a dozen semi-pet chickens) to a hawk. I wasn't sure what did it, but the next day he got a second hen and I actually chased him away. A big red tail, and like yours, I saw him flying with another red tail the next day. I locked the girls up for a week in the coop, and have just let them out again the last couple days. So far so good. We went a year and a half without the hawks bothering them, but if the hawks have decided our place is a buffet, we may have a problem. There's no way I'm spending a couple hundred dollars on an enclosed run for $50 worth of chickens!
When we had our pastured laying flock, we always moved them in for the winter at the same time the rodents started hibernating. If we stuck to our Thanksgiving move-in date, we escaped hawk predation.
Yes, this makes sense. Although they should have eaten that chicken breast without a problem? Perhaps it was scared away suddenly somehow and forgot to take the chicken "to go". I had a red-tail nail one of our chickens in our farm yard last summer as I was watching. Pretty impressive. I managed to run towards it and scare it off before it killed the hen. She is still with us today. The geese idea sounds interesting.??
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