Early this year, we had a hawk take out our small flock of egg laying birds. We were left with 1 rooster and 1 hen and sadly, the rooster got taken out Friday. Well, hawks and other birds of prey are protected by federal law.
Back in July, we took delivery of our new flocks of chicks. 20 White Plymouth Rocks, 19 Buff Orpingtons and 11 Americaunas. We've have them in the big run with no predator issues at all. Saturday, we moved the 20 White Rocks to the smaller run and all worked itself out. That was until Sunday around noon when they started raising a ruckus and a hawk swooped through the run. There are ways to keep hawks away from chickens (hanging CDs, scarecrows, putting up netting everywhere <- which I've done and is a PITA) and you must do those before the USDA will issue a depradation permit.
Along come the crows. Sunday a little after noon as I'm hanging CDs and putting up some netting, I hear the local murder of crows throwing a fit. Sure enough, Mister Hawk is at the top of our big cedar tree and the crows are harassing the heck out of it.
Monday, I picked up some crow decoys and cracked corn which I put out into our lot. The crows threw a fit yesterday at the new crows on the ground but this morning decided to get with the program and were down grazing away. As I left for work, they took off to the back tree line over the chicken runs and raised all kinds of noise.
I used to shoot crows "Just because" back when I was younger but now love having them around.