Tell How Predators Got Your Chickens. Save Somebody Else From The Bad Experience

I've used these "egg doors" for years without problems. I've since redesigned the latch.

upmycreek said:

I don't have too many clutter suggestions... Don't think you can go wrong with hiding places though... Mine hide in just about anything... My rabbit carrier was the nesting box of choice enforce they were confined. It's in the new run and there are 4 cochin chicks crammed in there sleeping right now. I guess I'd suggest maybe some hardy low shrubs and tough plants... Don't know what your growing zone is, but my bantam cochins did an incredible job of hiding under our hostas and tall loriope grass and in the branches of the clethra bushes when the hawk was flying around the other day.
Also I'd be interested in hearing others comments on this, but a DNR agent told me to buy a dummy owl with a bobble headand move it around outside my run every now and again.
I'm going to hang the CD's as others had suggested and I just bought poultry netting off of eBay for a reasonable price. I know what you mean about keeping costs down... I got lucky salvaging chain linked fence from an old dog kennel that a tree fell on. Anyways, Good luck!

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Wow...I'm really on this! Doing on a shoestring. They are still in Lock-Down and Boaz is crowing his head off in their, but they're alright. I should have a jimmy-rigged enclosed area in the run by mid-afteroon. And so there, Mr Hawk!!

Check into northern tool for cargo netting, it's relatively inexpensive and comes in different sizes. I use that as a topper for the chick pen and have hawks fly over all the time. As for clutter, any thing will do...a piece of plywood on blocks, one of those large plastic drums, or metal, with ends cut out and buried half way in the ground, hawks are the easiest to baffle imo. It just depends on how nice you want your clutter to look. I don't think plastic owls will work for long....or CDs. They get used to it.

Achickenwrangler#1 said:

Check into northern tool for cargo netting, it's relatively inexpensive and comes in different sizes. I use that as a topper for the chick pen and have hawks fly over all the time. As for clutter, any thing will do...a piece of plywood on blocks, one of those large plastic drums, or metal, with ends cut out and buried half way in the ground, hawks are the easiest to baffle imo. It just depends on how nice you want your clutter to look. I don't think plastic owls will work for long....or CDs. They get used to it.

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Thanks. this seems like sound advice. I had a life-sized plastic owl once to ward off pigeons from my balcony years ago when I lived on the 9th floor. It worked for about a week and then the poopy, poopy, poopy pigeons just came back and pooped all over the owl, too. That's what they thought about the owl.

Still out in the hot sun working on this funny-looking enclosure. Will check into the cargo netting at Northern Tool and compare to Top Flight poultry netting. But until the money comes in, we are make-shifting with whatever we find. Kind of fun, acutally.

You should check out sportsmansguide.com for netting. They have a whole section of military surplus at good prices, so you might find something there. I order all kinds of stuff from them, and I've been happy with the vast majority of items I have ordered. If you are unhappy for any reason, you can return it. Good company.

LightningTFarm said:

You should check out sportsmansguide.com for netting. They have a whole section of military surplus at good prices, so you might find something there. I order all kinds of stuff from them, and I've been happy with the vast majority of items I have ordered. If you are unhappy for any reason, you can return it. Good company.

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Thank-you, too, for this. I will check it out.

Worked hard all day yesterday trying to make a makeshift, do-it-with-what-I've-got kind of enclosed (with song bird netting (cheap stuff), deer plastic netting, left over pieces of wire fencing, scrap boards and their old make-shift tractor. Needless to say, when DH came home he was not impressed my project, probably because I left him out of it. Oh well, I had a lot of fun and some frustration and what should have taken an hour and half took me all day (with breaks) They somehow found their way out of the back of it anyway, crossing 'No-Man's-Land" to get out under the trees at the back of the open-air run. sigh. Maybe he is right about giving them their freedom and trusting their Maker, but I feel better with them protected. I have so much coop money, food money and love invested into those birds...I just don't want to lose one! If I had 300 if might be different, but I have 19. And each one will give me back between 75 and 85 dollars a year in eggs (hopefully) at $3 a dozen....cheaper than I pay at the store for cage-free. So yeah. I'm into doing whatever it takes to protect my birds...........I just need to do a better job of it and make it more aesthetically-pleasing.

It's tough to loose one! It's usually your favorite one too, or seems like it is. I have only one hen and ten chicks that refuses to leave the broody pen. I've left the gate open but she stays put where it's safe. With 500 or so sq feet, all the food they want, and an occasional wheelbartow of manure they are very content...the others though, want to stay outside and go where they will...but the dogs must do their part in keeping other critters away....everything eats chicken...everything. on the other hand, my coop is only so big and all the chicks are getting quite large now....so the resident predator (me) will have to thin them out a bit before winter.....

For anyone who thinks they don't need a top he is climbing a birdfeeder pole, just hangin out.
Makeshift is my middle name. They seem to respect the electric fence, but still test it once in a while, about every month I hear the sound of a shocked raccoon.

harveyhorses said:

For anyone who thinks they don't need a top he is climbing a birdfeeder pole, just hangin out.
Makeshift is my middle name. They seem to respect the electric fence, but still test it once in a while, about every month I hear the sound of a shocked raccoon.

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whoo-eee! When he's in a better mood about this I'm gonna show him the pic.

Achickenwrangler#1 said:

It's tough to loose one! It's usually your favorite one too, or seems like it is. I have only one hen and ten chicks that refuses to leave the broody pen. I've left the gate open but she stays put where it's safe. With 500 or so sq feet, all the food they want, and an occasional wheelbartow of manure they are very content...the others though, want to stay outside and go where they will...but the dogs must do their part in keeping other critters away....everything eats chicken...everything. on the other hand, my coop is only so big and all the chicks are getting quite large now....so the resident predator (me) will have to thin them out a bit before winter.....

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Yes....I probably will eventually start eating my birds..but they'll like not be my orps b/c they are so darn tame. I guess when necessity comes knocking we'll eat those, too. But by the time they've finished their laying career I have to can them probably.