When I look in my bird book there is actually no such bird as a chicken hawk, but according to Wikipedia it is an unofficial designation for three types of hawks: Cooper, Sharp Shinned and Redtail. Recent personal experience has given me a pretty good idea of how a hawk becomes designated a ‘chicken hawk’. Unfortunately, a resident hawk seems to have determined that meals are readily available and easy to catch in our chicken yard. The first attack was unwitnessed, and the dead hen was spotted in the corner of the yard only after she failed to come home for the bird seed treats I use to call them in at the end of the day. Her remains were pretty classic for a hawk attack, neck and breast eaten, and nothing more. Reading up on how to discourage hawk attacks on chickens, I picked up an owl decoy and put it in the chicken yard, moving it every 1-2 days. In the days after the attack, the weather got snowy and extremely cold, and even on the slightly warmer days, when I opened the coop to give the chickens the option to venture out, they mostly stayed inside the coop, or if they ventured out, congregated underneath the coop where they could keep their feet dry. So it wasn’t until the first days that were warm enough to coax the chickens out from under the house that the magnitude of the problem became apparent. While my mom and I were making a run to Ann Arbor to the food co-op, and Kerry Town, Gary noticed that the chickens were all huddled in the back corner of the yard, and stayed there when he opened up the gate to let them out to free range. Since this was a notable divergence from the usual chicken stampede out of the yard, he went in to explore, and startled a hawk in the middle of feasting on dead chicken number two. When I got home, I added another “hawk deterrent”, tying reflective silver streamers to the trees in the yard. The following day, I kept the chickens in for part of the morning, but finally crossed my fingers and let them out in the yard. About half an hour later, I checked on them as I left with the dogs for a walk, and they were happily foraging inside their fence. When I returned, I immediately noticed, that there were no chickens visible, an ominous sign. As I got closer, a small hawk, likely a Coopers hawk, lifted up from the chicken yard, leaving me with dead hen number three. URGHHHH!!!!! I found the rest of the chickens hiding, huddled together as far back under the chicken house as they could get.
I have to admit that I explored whether shooting the hawk was on option. But just in case you didn’t know, because I didn’t, hawks are protected and doing so is a felony! That’s a pretty definitive NO! Unfortunately, completely covering the top of our old chicken yard to restrict access is not feasible. So, I just need to keep my chickens locked inside forever, right? For the next two days, I did not let the chickens outside, while I stewed about what to do. Unfortunately, our chicken house is not large enough to humanely accommodate the remaining 23 chickens full time. And although the aging fence definitely needs to be replaced (and now I see also redesigned!), and doing so was on my spring to-do list, tackling it in the middle of winter would be pretty challenging! So, while the chickens were locked inside, we tried a few more tricks to discourage hawk visitors. I hung MANY CDs from trees all over the yard, and planted reflective pinwheels in the ground, to produce movement and flashes of light. Gary ran fishing line willy-nilly from posts and trees in the yard in the hopes that the hawk would get tangled in the line and would be discouraged from returning.
I have since let the chickens come back out and we have made it through 5 days with no further attacks. Unfortunately, I suspect that we may have done little more than buy some time. To a hawk, hunting chickens in the chicken yard is probably the hawk version of shooting fish in a barrel. I hope I am wrong, but my gut feeling is that once a hawk knows it can find an easy meal in our chicken yard, when it gets hungry enough, it is going to be pretty hard to discourage. And my mind keeps going back to the story I heard on NPR a few years ago about the chicken farmer and the eagles. If you have 20 minutes, you should give it a listen. It is a good story, but be warned it won’t reassure you about the possible fate of my chickens. For now, while I plan out my new, redesigned enclosure, and wonder if/when the hawk will try to return for another chicken dinner, I breath a sign of relief every time I check the chicken yard and find all the chickens alive and well.
1/18/23 – Although I have been hesitant to post an update, fearing I might jinx myself (and my chickens), there have been no further hawk attacks since I posted this story. Hoping that will continue!