Official BYC Poll: How Do You Protect Your Chickens From Predators?

[MissouriKid]

Firearm is always near, and I only have problems occasionally but that's due to constantly being outside

 

[Debbie292d]

Predators are one of the greatest fears a chicken farmer has. They can be cunning, fast, and very sneaky. Your chickens will be drawing in predators from the next county over! Well, maybe not that far, however somewhere back in these predators' ancient memories they have eaten wild chickens at some point and will come snooping around for a meal day and night. So keeping them safe from predators should be on every chicken keeper's top priority list.

How Do You Protect Your Chickens From Predators? Place your votes above (you may select more than one)

Feel free to share any other ways you keep your chickens safe in the comments section below.

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Further Reading:

Top 10 Chicken Predators
A Checklist To Avoiding Casualties In The Flock
Predators & Pests

(Check out more exciting Official BYC Polls HERE!)

There was no option to check for owning cats.

We have a border collie and corgi, both who do an outstanding job keeping the riff-raff out, and the chickens safe.

But this is Stella, one of our barn cats making sure a skunk knows to get lost.

On the left, the edge of the forest. On the right, a hardware cloth-enforced pen attached to a 100-square-foot parrot aviary being used as a growout pen right now. The white you see is when the motion light kicks back on is a white tarp on the aviary. Five 2-month-old chicks are locked in there. Only a bear could get to them in there.

There was another cam behind it where the skunk runs to the right to get into the farmer's field, and Stella is running parallel. She followed through to be sure it left!

We got her a few months ago from the Humane Society.

 

[Bleuberry]

We have extended the hard ware cloth 4' out into the border of our coop and run. all the way around and covered it with 4" of gravel. The windows on each side of the coop have hard ware cloth bolted to the outside.

 

[igorsMistress]

All I do is close the pop door on the coop at night and provide lots of cover in the yard. I have a rooster, but the hens are just as aware as he is; the girls have seen cats in the yard that the rooster didn’t know about until they told him.

 

[pyaresquared]

Our regular visitors include raccoons, foxes, coyotes, great horned owls, and hawks. There is also a few feral cats.

All windows and doors on the coop have security mesh. The coop has a small attached steel-mesh covered run with a steel gate on a photocell. Both coop and run are bolted to a concrete footer that goes about 12” deep.

The pen that encloses the coop and run is open air, and the hens free-range in the back yard during the day.

We have had many looky-loos from predators. The owls frequently perch and hoot in the trees above the coop. But, we have not lost a chicken to a predator in the 8 years that we have had them. Knock on wood.

 

[pvaldes]

A few real predators only, dogs, cats and humans

Fox has the biggest body-count by far, but it does a stellar job with rodents so is tolerated. Is really my fault if an old hen is left out at night; and the coop has proven to be 100% fox proof until now.

The best line of defense against predators is to mimick nature and use the chickens best weapon: the egg

To accept that this things happen and is not the end of the world helps a lot. Incubate more chicken and let survivors to learn their lesson hoping that the fox cubs enjoyed its dinner.

 

[CluckkyKrista]

Great topic! We have a totally sealed thick wire mesh run with a skirt that’s buried to prevent digging. Feels pretty secure when they’re inside but I am concerned about foxes when we free range them during the day. At the moment we only let them out when we’re present and are able to watch them. They don’t stray far from the run/coop actually but I’d love to incorporate some portable electric fencing around the run just for a bit more freedom/longer free ranging during the day. I know this won’t protect from aerial predators but they’re not very common here tbh (not as much as foxes) and we have a lot of tree cover. Also, it helps to have a rooster (though I’m honestly not sure for how long he’ll be with us - another story). Anyway, grateful for any other suggestions folks might have for improving daytime free ranging. Does broadcasting music or talking sounds work as a deterrent against foxes? (Sorry if this question has already been asked…)

 

[BDutch]

Great topic! We have a totally sealed thick wire mesh run with a skirt that’s buried to prevent digging. Feels pretty secure when they’re inside but I am concerned about foxes when we free range them during the day. At the moment we only let them out when we’re present and are able to watch them. They don’t stray far from the run/coop actually but I’d love to incorporate some portable electric fencing around the run just for a bit more freedom/longer free ranging during the day. I know this won’t protect from aerial predators but they’re not very common here tbh (not as much as foxes) and we have a lot of tree cover. Also, it helps to have a rooster (though I’m honestly not sure for how long he’ll be with us - another story). Anyway, grateful for any other suggestions folks might have for improving daytime free ranging. Does broadcasting music or talking sounds work as a deterrent against foxes? (Sorry if this question has already been asked…)

I let my chickens free range most days for 1 - 5 hours during the day. But never before 9 am. Foxes don’t like it very much if people are awake and make noises everywhere.

Foxes, birds of pray, an occasional loose dog (not allowed), and one big male cat that lives nearby are a threat.
My Dutch who are not pure bred are great escapers and if they see something that might be a predator they flee. Another slim heritage breed I had were good escapers too.
Our garden has plenty bushes to hide under for birds of pray. If the slim hens see a dog they fly upon the run or over the hedge to the neighbours garden. I don’t think extra fencing outside their run would contribute much to their safety unless it covers lots of hiding places.

I lost some hens free ranging, but not many over the years. I lost 2 young pullets and 1 bantam RIR that couldn't fly without knowing which animal was to blame. There is only one I do know: she was taken by a buzzard. Thats 4 adults in 9 years while having an average of 7 chickens.

In the run wasn’t alway safe either. Lost 2 chicks (rat) and a hen to a fox that managed to get in early morning.

I can’t have roosters. I know from reading that many rooster try hard to warn and some even physically protect their hens. Hens can warn each other too. Breed and surroundings are important too to avoid casualties.

Keeping chickens inside the run all the time feels like forbidding children to leave the house because bad things can happen on the road or going out. But its an understandable choice if there are too many predators.

My pros for free ranging: They enjoy being outside, they gather healthy food, they have less stress.
Cons: predation, demolition of some flower beds

Ini mini my almost 10 yo escape artist this morning. On top of the run after a strange cat sneaked up to the chickens.

 

[Silkiebegins]

My chicken coop is predator proof. My two evil dogs use to lurk around the chicken coop trying to figure out how to get in and they are huskies, very smart ones too. They eventually gave up and the chicken coop has a wooden floor, sturdy roof, wall and door. It's also pretty big so our chickens don't get stressed in there.

 

[Birdsonghill]

Where I live, it is essential to maintain a flock of chickens to provide very secure predator proof habitat for them. I have free ranged many decades ago and it did not work, no matter what I did with fences, guard animals, lights, bells, etc.. I continue to free range some small bachelor flocks most summers and also continue to have predation on them. I have accepted that. I try to let them out late morning and lock them up at night. Despite my "guard dogs" that are protective of my birds, I still lose some every year. Some years up to 90% in one attack! I just lost three young mature roosters out of four, to an attack by a large mammal still unidentified positively, in a single attack event. I have watched roosters be killed and eaten by Hawks . The worse single day event was at one of the chicken barns I was monitoring for the county Penal Farm as a Pest specialist for the Health department. Over 30 birds killed in one night as it turned out to be by only two minks. The old barn built secure had been compromised with rat holes and burrows under the soil line and then through the rotting wire and treated wood buried for security. The minks easily slid through the approximate two inch holes and went on a rampage. They did this at least, every few days and killed well over 100 birds before I trapped them. Fox killed most of my personal chickens free ranging but dogs, a cat, minks, raccoons, hawks and a bobcat have killed my birds as well. I lessoned this with using narrow fenced chicken pastures with fluttering tapes and strings strung across the top, but this was not really free range. I might envy people who live in places without predator threats to their chickens, except that likely indicates they live in a place mostly dead to wildlife and the free natural world. My conclusion after 60 plus years raising chickens is that if you can not tolerate predation losses of your birds, don't free range them. I too, have fed a fox family many roosters and am OK with that, losing an excess rooster used as a lawn ornament to feed a fox family or a beautiful bird of prey does not bother me much. I hate to lose a bird to a loose dog or cat. I have only lost one young chick to a snake inside my coop/secure run in fifty years. Best wishes for all you chicken people however you humanely keep your birds, in a secure coop and run or free range.