posted 11 years ago
Thea,
I have three neighbors down the road with chicken pens. The same pair of old hawks have lived for 25 years over a tree a couple hundred feed from the first pen, but have never attacked the chickens. Instead, the hawks feed out of a 12-acre pasture that I own.
Hawks normally feed on field rodents and baby snakes. I read that they attack chickens because they lack food.
What you need is a return to having land with biodiversity, but that will take a long time. I bet you have real clean fields and gardens....no mice for the hawks?
Crows may or may not run off hawks. I know for a fact that crows, ravens and hawks are not mortal enemies naturally. I have seen them sleeping, all three types of birds, in the same tree. I have seen crow and raven babies playing with each other. When I moved here, all three dive bombed each others' nests, and I began going to the bird brawls and throwing small rocks at the divebombers. This made them all quit fighting and get along.
Biodiversity only becomes a problem when it is out of balance. I will have an occasional problem, like a groundhog or voles, but the problem disappears miraculously -- soon as snakes wake up, small garden predators disappear.
I know people think those are empty words, living in balance with nature, but try it. People always complain about slugs. They can start adding quail.
I learn something new from nature everyday. A problem is a friend. Thee is a couple of permaculture experts on here who are trying to get rid of a swampy farm they bought. why, water is the greatest asset in the world. They need to figure out how to use it!!! They may own an old beaver pond. Indians loved beaver silt.