Cooper’s Hawks are agile raptors found across North America. Their presence often concerns backyard chicken owners regarding flock safety. Understanding their behavior helps address these concerns.
Cooper’s Hawks and Poultry Predation
Cooper’s Hawks prey on chickens, especially smaller or younger birds. While their primary diet includes small to medium-sized birds like pigeons, doves, and jays, they are opportunistic hunters, also targeting small mammals such as chipmunks and squirrels. These hawks use an ambush hunting style, flying swiftly and low to surprise prey. They pursue prey through dense vegetation and hunt in urban and suburban areas where food sources are abundant.
Identifying Cooper’s Hawks
Identifying a Cooper’s Hawk involves distinct features. These medium-sized hawks typically range from 14 to 20 inches in length, roughly the size of a crow. Adults display a blue-gray back, a dark cap, and pale underparts with reddish horizontal barring; their eyes are orange to red, while juveniles have yellow eyes and brown chest streaking. In flight, Cooper’s Hawks exhibit a characteristic flap-flap-glide pattern, with relatively short, rounded wings and a long, rounded tail featuring dark bands. This rounded tail, along with a larger, more prominent head, helps distinguish them from the similar-looking Sharp-shinned Hawk.
Safeguarding Your Chickens
Protecting backyard chickens from Cooper’s Hawks requires preventative measures.
- Provide overhead cover for runs to prevent hawks from swooping down on the flock.
- Securely fasten netting, such as heavy-duty knotted poultry netting or hardware cloth, over the run; brightly colored options may deter hawks.
- Ensure coops and runs have no gaps for predators, and maintain feeders and waterers inside covered areas to reduce exposure.
- Supervise free-ranging chickens, especially younger ones, to reduce vulnerability to aerial predators.
- Use reflective deterrents like old CDs, DVDs, or reflective tape hung around the coop to startle hawks with sudden flashes of light.
- Provide hiding spots such as shrubs, bushes, or elevated perches and roosts within the coop and run for chickens to seek immediate cover.
- Consider roosters as an early warning system, alerting hens to overhead threats.
Legal Protections for Hawks
Cooper’s Hawks are protected under federal laws in the United States, specifically the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA). This legislation prohibits the hunting, capturing, killing, or harassment of migratory birds, their eggs, nests, or parts, without a permit. This means that lethal measures are not permitted to address hawk predation on chickens. The law reinforces the need for non-lethal deterrents and preventative measures to protect poultry flocks.