Raven attack

[chrismahon]

We lost one of our hens this afternoon, just moments before I went up to the top enclosure to clean the coop out. The cockerel (Archie) was alarm calling, but that's not unusual for him because anything out of the ordinary and he starts. Usually I go up and it's a feral cat just passing by. The enclosure, which is 220m2 is pretty secure from a ground attack and we thought, with the addition of clothes lines over the top, the buzzards wouldn't attempt a landing and indeed they haven't. But when I got to the top of the hill a huge black bird flew up almost vertically out of the enclosure and from the takeoff spot I found the victim. She was huge (Cou-Nu), so not possible to lift her out as well. Only thing we could do was add more clothes lines, but they must be very hungry to attack like that without a clear way of escape. With the extra lines as they are now escape will be impossible. I labelled the post 'Raven attack' because I haven't ever seen an all black bird that big and of the crow family a raven is the biggest. The only way in for that killer was to drop from the oak tree branches above, so if you have chickens under big trees that sort of attack is a possibility.

 

[CherishedFowlGuardian]

Sorry for your loss!
Try putting shiny things in the yard and maybe even order some fake predators like an owl or even get some fake dead ravens might help.

 

[chrismahon]

Another attack yesterday in the bottom enclosure. This time it was a kestrel dive at a little hybrid and fortunately it missed, but it scared the hell out of them and they all ran into a spare coop and spent nearly an hour alarm calling. Tried calming them down several times, without effect. Eventually they settled. Not much can be done as they have a lot of cover anyway, so they will have to learn from it. The leaves have now dropped from the trees and the highly manoeuvrable kestrel flew between them.

Not the first time a kestrel has tried to take one of our chickens. We had a bantam Leghorn in a run sitting on his perch and one went straight at him, pulling away at the last split second when it realised he was behind wire mesh. It happen so fast the little chap didn't notice!