I have an abundance of Turkey Vultures and in more than 50 years, they've never harmed a chicken or chick. and a chicken hawk. Soaring turkey vultures bring their wings back into a "V" ("V" for "vulture), while hawks soar with almost a flat wingspan. I was about 100' away, didn't see or hear him until he was on the ground and he was so sneaky that none of the other chickens even noticed and they just kept on free ranging like nothing was happening. Search Strategy. A chicken hawk is actually a hawk while buzzard I think is just a slang expression to describe all vultures. Vultures are large birds of prey. sitting in a tree looking down on a chicken coop. “Cats would put up too much of a fight…the turkey vulture wouldn’t want to mess with them. The turkey vulture is unique among all vultures and buzzards in his ability to regurgitate his last meal on command. This is more than a party trick; if threatened he uses this ploy to surprise and disgust his predator with the foul odor. Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus): A large black bird with wrinkled bare-skinned heads and necks. Turkey vultures are known as being nature's garbage men - eating the leftover dead animals that otherwise would go to rot. A turkey vulture is a lot bigger than a hawk. You can tell a turkey vulture right off, from a long ways away, because of this. Red Shouldered Hawks also never attack my birds. The cacophony that this intrusion caused could have woken the dead. How do I know if it is a hawk or a turkey vulture? Vultures are often much larger and darker than hawks are, with a bald (featherless) head. Another way to tell is the wings themselves. Well when I started let them out yesterday I had what looked like either two hawks or turkey vultures circling over my land together. By the time Jae and I raced outside, the hawk had already taken off, undoubtedly quite displeased by the din. Buzzard hawks are birds of prey, eating small animals, insects and carrion. “Turkey vultures are harmless to people, and they would be absolutely no threat to pets like cats or dogs,” he said. Vultures in my area have either dark bodies with light wing tips (black vulture) or light bottom halves of their wings (turkey vulture). Tweet. Another way to tell is the wings themselves. If provided with the opportunity, vultures will kill young or fully-grown ducks and chickens, as well as their eggs. It's true this bird is a carrion lover, however, he does venture beyond dead animals occasionally, eating berries, insects, grapes and coyote feces. I shooed everyone back into the coop. The name stuck, and even today the North American vultures may still be commonly called buzzards, turkey buzzards, or black buzzards. The birds those colonists were really seeing, however, were not buteo hawks but were turkey vultures and black vultures, which are widespread in eastern North America. Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura): Dark brown with a bare head and neck, and skin color varying from pink to bright red.