Can coyotes catch a small, flighty breed such as brown Leghorn?

[UrbanEnthusiast]

So I have raised chickens in the city before, but I just got my first batch of chicks since moving to the country. I cannot afford a bunch of fencing, nor do I see the point in keeping chickens in a run all day. If I wanted eggs from confined hens, I could just go to a store. Of course, we have a secure coop for them to roost at night, and adequate run space for them if there's a local outbreak or terrible weather. I will provide feed, but I want my birds to live off the land for the most part. Yet coyotes pass through here frequently, even during the day. Bald eagles are around too. I even worry about our cat. She's a pretty good hunter. Sadly I cannot have a rooster per on-site landlady's request. So I did my research, and I figured I wanted alert, lightweight, flighty breeds of non-white plumage that I thought would have the best chance of free ranging successfully, and I also wanted a good feed to egg ratio. I went with 4 brown Leghorn, 2 Ancona, 1 blue Hamburg, and 1 EE. Supposedly they are all females (I hope). Our property is five acres, mostly wooded, with a lot of brush, and some clearing. There are plenty of places for cover. I can't afford to keep a large flock (8 is the max for now), so if I get any losses, I was thinking of trying to find a couple Egyptian Fayoumis hens or some kind of game breed, something that will make a racket whenever predators are near, like a substitute rooster.

Any tips from experienced free-rangers? Does my scenario seem sustainable? I don't mind replenishing birds occasionally, but I don't have the time or money to be raising chicks constantly. How do you find their eggs, especially with the "wilder" type breeds? Do y'all think I could possibly train a dog to perform such a task? We're getting a dog pretty soon, probably before we get any eggs, some type of herding breed, maybe. It will be a rescue. I'm pretty decent at training rescue dogs, though I haven't done any search stuff before.

 

[TalkALittle]

UrbanEnthusiast you won't need a dog to sniff out nests if you confine your birds to the coop when they start to lay. They are creatures of habit so just limit their environment to the coop and a small (temporary) run until they are in the habit of using the nest boxes. Once the habit is established even when given the option to free range they will come back and lay in the coop.

 

[varidgerunner]

Coyotes would be way less of a problem than hawks, and if you have eagles, they might discourage the hawks from hanging around. Shut your coop at night, don't let them out of the coop or at least a fenced run until later in the morning and you will have little coyote problems with leghorn type chickens. Silkies, Polish, big fat dumb breeds, turned out early in the edge of the woods, yes, you might have a problem. Leave the coop open at night, and yes, coyotes might learn where you keep the food, but it will likely be from cleaning up Mr. 'Coon's leftovers.

 

[enola]

Even a dog bred to protect herds or flocks MUST be trained to do the job properly. Beware of cross bred dogs. I am probably get yelled at for saying this, and it is only my opinion.......

But, cross breeding herding breeds with guarding breeds will give you a dog that is very confused about his purpose in life.

 

[MeepBeep]

I would not be so quick to blame your dogs' misbehavior on breed.

Built in hard wired instincts in breeds are not 'misbehaviors' they are traits of specific breeds, and is why those breeds were developed and used for their specific purposes... To suggest that dogs are universal in their behaviors, and if one doesn't do this or that they are misbehaving is just silly...

 

[scooter147]

They were a mix of barred rock, easter eggers and either buff rock or buff orps. The other thing he found was when he went to lock up is he had hens on the wrong side of the fence. They obviously took flight to try to escape the coyote and the netting is only 4 foot so it wasn't much of a problem but before the attacks the hens never went over as they stayed about a foot away from the netting. they knew it bit and since the set up was moved every other day or so they had plenty of green grass and new space to scratch around so they had no real incentive to fly out until Mr. Coyote came for dinner every day.

I see the responses about leghorn types being able to fly and escape coyotes. I have raised chickens for 40 plus years and currently have and always have had white, red, silver and brown leghorns and yes the leghorns can fly but not like a wild turkey.

If the leghorns are in the open and a coyote attacks they will run then fly but how far and high can a leghorn fly. My experience under the best of circumstances is 50 feet and about 3 or 4 feet off the ground while flying (not from a squatting position then up) and that's with a good head wind that offers more lift. They then come back to the ground and a quite possible the coyote will be waiting for it to land with mouth wide open. Coyotes are fast.

Once the leghorns start laying they will add weight which then decreases the distance and height of flight.

Growing up we had over 100 laying hens of all types and lots and lots of barnyard banties. My dad loved banties and they free ranged and roosted wherever they wanted, barn, chicken house, trees you name it. We had every imaginable ground predator known to man, coyotes, bobcats, fox, weasel, mink, raccoon, possum and the worst stray dogs.

Our chicken run was dog kennel panels, sides and top, welded wire buried a couple feet out to prevent digging. We never lost a laying hen as long as they were in the coop or run.

We simple could not let the laying hens (and yes we had leghorn, hamburgs and minorcas) free range unless someone was out.

The banties on the other hand were survivors. The LEAN, smart ones survived and then past those genes onto their offspring. Those little lean machines could fly well, far and high. Now the predators did take their share but the banties produced fast enough to sustain loses. I would say we had 50 to 75 banties running around the place spring, summer and fall. The numbers would drop over winter as reproduction stopped. The predators NEVER stopped attacking/ambushing and they would succeed enough to keep numbers in check and dwindle the population in the winter.

My point to all this is (yes I am just as windy when I talk) if you free range expect losses and maybe total losses.

Good luck I hope it works, nothing makes me happier than free ranging chickens.

 

[varidgerunner]

Game chickens have not been bred to be dumb. In fact they have had a breeding program very similar to natural selection, in which only the strong have survived. No human has made those selections, they were continuously chosen by their best peers. They are far from easy pickings for a coyote. Left to their own devices, they will roost high in a tree, twenty to thirty feet. They will feed somewhere within reach of protective cover, they can fly long distances, achieving an impressive vertical height. They will even nest up off the ground, if they can find a suitable location. Coyotes will not present a significant threat to game chickens in a free range environment. Put them on tie cords, or in flimsy pens, and it's a different story. Hawks and owls will take way more than coyotes.

The whole smartness thing, I can see why people have the notion that chickens are destined to be stupid, in dealing with the production bred birds. There is a whole other world of chickens out there. Unless you have experienced these birds, you can't really make a blanket statement covering the perceived intellect of all chickens.

 

[centrarchid]

I would definitely try some game birds if I thought I'd ever be able to find their eggs. Even if I could find them, they probably wouldn't lay enough for my liking. I am very interested in them, though!

Consider making a first generation cross (F1) between a game chicken and a breed that lays as you like. My American Dominique x American Games can produce >200 eggs in first year of lay which is comparable to pure American Dominiques.

 

[varidgerunner]

Sounds like a great idea for someone with a larger farm. Our landlady won't even let us have a rooster, so I'm not in the breeding game until we can afford to buy our own land. Even then, most hatcheries don't seem to sell any game breeds besides OEG. Would that suffice? I don't know what that breed's temperament is like.

The OEG carried by the hatchery are not really OEG. Real OEG are in the hands of a very few breeders and would cost a pretty penny. Hatchery OEG are bred from American Gamefowl, with maybe a little added Leghorn to make them lay better. Crossing one of them with a leghorn and keeping the resulting females would meet your needs very well. Pure hatchery OEG would meet your needs only if you ordered enough and staggered the ages to ensure enough eggs when they go broody. Don't confuse OEG with OEG bantam. Different animal entirely, tiny, very tiny. Adds even more species of hawks to the list of potential predators.

 

[MeepBeep]

Coyotes are pack hunters and can easily tire out and catch chickens, if they discover a free chicken buffet it could easily result in continued devastation...

Chickens have about zero defensive abilities at night thus they really need a safe and secure place to roost for the night aka a secured coop and if you provide them such a place and also provide them with nesting boxes and food at that location they will generally lay their eggs there as well, no searching needed...

If you expect them to live off the land without you providing them shelter, security and even substance I believe you are setting yourself up for some fast disappointment...