Hate Hawks

[Ruby]

I know they have a reason to be on earth, and deserve to live, but today DH was feeding his squirrel. He was on a ladder putting the feed in the squirrel feeder when something caught his eye. He looked over on the ground and a Hawk had the sqirrel in his tallons. My husband made a move and the hawk flew away without the squirrel. The squirrel ran up the tree right under the ladder and DH said he could see where the hawk had the squirrel because the fur was messed up.

Now I'm afraid he will go after my cats.

[big rockpile]

Hawks and Owls are hard on Rabbits and Squirrels.But there is nothing you can do about it.

Same thing with four Legged Predators,including your Cat.

big rockpile

[BarbH]

I hate them too, Ruby. I've lost some cute little chickens to them.

[Gideon]

Have lost four Rhode Island chicks and several others to one that thinks our lawn is his feeding grounds. I will get him-just a matter of time. The RI chicks are hand fed pets that I bought especially to increase the flocks physical size.

[APPway]

All the problems people have with hawks is really surprising. We have our poultry that free ranges all day and thats from daylite 4:00 am until dark which is around 8:30pm and have Hawks as well as a few eagles flying over at all times and have not taken any poultry or pets as in cats and dogs. Maybe we are lucky but I see them catch the ground squirrels all the time and that is while the chickens are free ranging. The bad poultry varmits here on the praires are the red fox and coyotes.

APPway

[Qwispea]

Sorry to hear about your husband's squirrel's close encounter..but glad the squirrel wasn't captured as food. How big was the hawk? Was it big enough to grab a full-sized cat? If it was..you might want to protect your cat. Not sure how..I'll leave that to you to figure out.

Some people have trained a hawk or two to fly to them..to land on their arm (protected)..and come on command. Does a hawk qualify as a pet?

[Busdav]

Originally Posted by APPway

All the problems people have with hawks is really surprising. We have our poultry that free ranges all day and thats from daylite 4:00 am until dark which is around 8:30pm and have Hawks as well as a few eagles flying over at all times and have not taken any poultry or pets as in cats and dogs. Maybe we are lucky but I see them catch the ground squirrels all the time and that is while the chickens are free ranging. The bad poultry varmits here on the praires are the red fox and coyotes.

APPway

We had no problem here either until the day that goshawk arrived. We free range our chickens too and the local redtails completely ignore them but that goshawk went through like the Tasmanian devil. He killed nine chickens in the first hour before we got them all inside, then he killed six more when a "helpful" neighbor let them out a few days later. We kept the chickens shut in for three weeks before the same neighbor gave him a lead engraved invitation to leave. I don't think it hurt him much but he did take the hint and we haven't seen him since.

The thing that p*ssed me off was the reaction I got from the state and the local raptor center. Basically they were very sympathetic, but otherwise did nothing. They suggested that we really needed to enclose them. (This in the middle of January in Vermont, but that we could try various whiz-bangs and whirly-gigs to scare him off-- right.

A few days after my neighbor shot at him the game warden stopped by and said that someone had reported seeing someone shooting at a hawk. We very honestly denied doing any such thing and he obligingly believed us, but we all knew that it was a don't ask, don't tell sort of thing. He warned us about the dire legal consequences of shooting at a protected species and left.

I sat down and figured that the losses we took from his visit cost us almost as much as the fine ($1500) would have been. I had several easy shots at him and couldn't make myself do it, but next time I won't be so squeamish. I'm all for endangered species and all that, but small farmers are an endangered species too and that guy cost us the profit from the chicken operation that year. Yeah, we could shut them in, but we get a premium for our eggs because they are from realio-trulio free range hens and if we shut them in we'd lose that and a lot of our sales too boot.

Dave