The Danger from Above

We've had a new visitor at the farm, and safe to say the chickens are not impressed. 

 A very large australian harrier has noticed our bumper crop of chicks this year, and is hoping to enjoy the bounty.  3 times how we have heard a huge racket of squacking, screeching, wing flapping drama coming from the back yard, we have raced out only to find a huge harrier landed amongst our chickens, often with a chick in its talons.  I was amazed at the bravery of the hens and roosters as they ran at the hawk, lunging with their claws doing their best to frighten him off.    The chicks themselves will drop down into the grass and freeze, they are almost impossible to see.  Once the hen is sure that the danger is gone, she will call to her chicks and they will pop up out of the grass and run to her as fast as their little legs will carry them.  

So what to do about this problem?

The hawk seems to come around in the early evening, either he has sussed out that is when I feed the chickens or it is when he does most of his hunting, avoiding the searing heat of the day during the summer.  

Either way, I had been feeding them out in the open but  I can move my feeding area to inside the chicken run, it has a roof so will protect them from attacks from above and I can't see the hawk putting himself at risk to fly in the door of the run.  Apart from that the hens are pretty good at keeping their chicks under the trees dashing from one sheltered area to the next.  

I can't begrudge the hawk hunting my chickens, they seem to be raising chicks at the moment so he will just be trying to feed his babies, but we also need to stock ourselves with chicken meat for the winter.  

Has anyone else out there had this problem, what did you do about it? 

Till next time, happy growing  :)