Hi there,
We just converted part of our old barn into a coop, YAY! And as soon as the ground isn't frozen solid (Ontario! , we had (obviously, I thought...) planned on building an outside run for the girls.
Well my hubby was just speaking to the lady who runs a local feed store, and she said not to bother. She said either free-range them, or keep them inside, as whatever we do, a determined predator will get into the run. I'm a bit dismayed, TBH.
I'd love to free-range my girls, but the fact is we're in a rural area, with the nearest neighbour maybe a half-mile away. Although we are mostly in fields, there are a couple of patches of wood, and coyotes around, as well as raccoons, and possibly foxes.
I'm only at home in the summer when I'm not teaching, and I was assuming that predators would be more than willing to take their pick when nobody's around, even in the day. The lady said that she "only" lost two birds last summer, but that really isn't a scenario I want with my heritage ladies.
Our barn isn't hooked up to electric, so there's no way for us to run an electric fence. We were thinking of sinking hardware cloth a couple of feet into the ground, and extending it high, and covering with lighter mesh to keep hawks etc out. We don't have a dog yet (couple of years away!) Is she right, are we crazy?
I'm willing to ramp up our run design, but is it really the case that there's no point building one? Should I consider free ranging them?
Thanks!
We just converted part of our old barn into a coop, YAY! And as soon as the ground isn't frozen solid (Ontario! , we had (obviously, I thought...) planned on building an outside run for the girls.
Well my hubby was just speaking to the lady who runs a local feed store, and she said not to bother. She said either free-range them, or keep them inside, as whatever we do, a determined predator will get into the run. I'm a bit dismayed, TBH.
I'd love to free-range my girls, but the fact is we're in a rural area, with the nearest neighbour maybe a half-mile away. Although we are mostly in fields, there are a couple of patches of wood, and coyotes around, as well as raccoons, and possibly foxes.
I'm only at home in the summer when I'm not teaching, and I was assuming that predators would be more than willing to take their pick when nobody's around, even in the day. The lady said that she "only" lost two birds last summer, but that really isn't a scenario I want with my heritage ladies.
Our barn isn't hooked up to electric, so there's no way for us to run an electric fence. We were thinking of sinking hardware cloth a couple of feet into the ground, and extending it high, and covering with lighter mesh to keep hawks etc out. We don't have a dog yet (couple of years away!) Is she right, are we crazy?
I'm willing to ramp up our run design, but is it really the case that there's no point building one? Should I consider free ranging them?
Thanks!