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Please don’t shoot the bobcat. They are amazing animals and there are lots more chickens around than there are bobcats!

Bobcats have to eat too…

For 10 years now I've been flip-flopping my garden and my adjacent chicken run on an annual basis. This years run was last years garden and vice versa. I normally have 10-15 hens. Each area is 40' x 40'. I have a small coop built on a cart that I can move around. I use electric netting...

It’s a great hobby!

Upstate New York. Columbia County.

Imagine all the city folk who move to the country for the summer. They could rent mature egg layers, have fresh eggs every day, and pretend they are farmers. Actually, I guess they would be farmers. Sort of. In a small way. Then return the hens at the end of the summer. No muss, no fuss.😊

No, renting hens is not something that is done in my area. As far as I know, I've invented the concept. Because I'm retired now, and I spend my winters in warmer climes, I'm only at my old farm in the summers. If I were to get chicks, they would not be laying by the time I leave in the Fall...

Every year, when I return to my summer digs, I rent young hens that are just starting to lay. This year the farmer from whom I rent had just gotten his new hens in the day before from the young hen raising factory, where ever that is. When I picked them up they were in the coop he had put them...

You might consider building a coop onto a small trailer, or anything with one axel and two wheels that you could make into a small moveable coop. Then the ladies would have the same, comfortable coop to go into every night. Put a few nests in it and they have a familiar place to lay their eggs.

You mentioned that the planned chicken run has a cherry tree? I'm pretty sure that all parts of a cherry tree except the fruit are poisonous. This means leaves and bark. I don't know how poisonous

The main problem I have is with owls (I think its owls). They mainly bite the head off and don't eat too much of the body. The odd thing is they sometimes apparently walk up the ramp and right into the coop through the small chicken sized door. When I forget to close the door. Does this seem odd...

My chicken run IS my compost heap, because I alternate the garden and the chicken run on alternate years. Best and easiest composting idea. If they don’t eat it, they scratch it to bits.

I don’t know about the brains part. Anyone who owns chickens know they don’t have any brains. That’s why they’re chickens. The head is free of feathers- that makes sense. I don’t think it’s because when they finish the head they are not hungry any more- sometimes after they kill one chicken and...

I lost 2 hens last night to a predator. Their heads were completely missing and no other body parts were touched. The run has electric netting around it. No sign of something digging under the fence and no visible animal tracks. The bodies were stiff so I supposed it happened during the middle...

A couple of other notes: Besides the coop, which is open on both ends, I have another fixture where the hens can go for shade or to get out of the sun. It’s just a sheet of plywood with legs, easily movable. It interesting to watch them run under it if a crow flies overhead and casts his shadow...

That would be a surprise indeed, if it was a loan of chickens, but I actually rent them, cash money.

Correction- the netting that I use is 48” high, not 40”.

The electric netting comes in standard lengths. The ones I use are 164’ long which makes a 40’ square. I erect it and take it down every year. Takes an hour or 2 once you figure it out.

I have seen that story and the plan and operation is very well done. That operation is much more formal and better looking than mine is. One difference is that he is separately making compost whereas I just throw everything into the chicken run and let them do the work. If they don’t eat it and...

The electric netting is (I think) 40” high. When I first started using it the chickens would sometimes fly over, where they would then meet Mr.Fox. Now I clip their wings when I bring them home to summer camp. The clipping and their aversion to the electric netting after a few jousts with it...