Am I lucky?? Naive??

[KDailey]

I have been wondering about this same thing. I read all this about making coops that are inpenatrable and might as well be a castle fortress for chickens (as my boyfriend says). But we haven't had a single problem.

Apparantly raccoons are extremely clever and will get into coops and runs with little difficulty if given the time. We've seen tracks around our coop and run but no damage to either and no lost chickens.

Our neighbor (who is actually a couple acres away, has pens made of chicken wire instead of hardware cloth, they don't go all the way up to the tin roof and the chickens are just in runs with no fortress coop to put them in at night. And she hasn't had a single problem.

This is making me think about how I build the remaining pens. Is it really necessary for me to use hardware cloth when we don't seem to have an issue in our area? Would chicken wire be ok if we just did a double layer on the bottom 3 feet? So many questions and I don't want to do the wrong thing. But when I added it up, I'd be saving at least $500 by using chicken wire, even with the double layer on the bottom 3 feet.

So it makes me wonder: Do I really think that raccoons will get $500 worth of my chickens? I don't think so, I don't have high dollar show chickens. No I don't want them to get eaten by raccoons but when it comes down to it, I can't afford to just run out and spend all my money on a fortress for my chickens if it's not necessary.

 

[chicktwins]

WhiteMountainsRanch

I once named a kitten Sandy Eggo. Laughed a little when I read that under your name.

Back to the subject::
My chickens have only been outside in their coop for 2 weeks now. So far so good (knock on wood) but I have come face to face with a opossum (last week) and my BIL saw a fox laying by a tree in the front yard when he pulled up last weekend. I know they are there and I am just biding my time. We haven't yet built the outdoor run and part of me wants to keep them inside the coop nice and safe. I know they would be miserable though so we are going to start building this weekend (hoping). They really want to go outside but I am too afraid to let them go out even supervised for an hour. There are 27 and I don't think I could protect that many by myself from the hawks and eagles, etc that are out during the day if I needed to quickly make a move and get them to safety. I think maybe I am the CHICKEN!! haha

 

[elmo]

Lucky, but only a little bit. Three months of no problems doesn't require that much luck unless you happen to live in an area with a very heavy predator population.

To answer the question about the chicken wire, it all depends on what your level of comfort is with losses and cleaning up the mess after them. You're right, though. $500 buys a lot of replacement chickens and soap/disinfectant (to clean up the blood, etc.).

 

[RedDrgn]

I think it's what others have said; honeymoon period. No matter where you are, there are predators of some kind. It's just a matter of time until they test your flock to see if they can make a meal out of any of them. If they can, they'll keep coming back (until you stop them).

I know I'd love to free range our chickens, but I think we'd be idiots to do so until they're fully grown and only do so when we can be out with them. Just last week, while finishing up the electric fence on our chicken run, a vixen ran through our yard not 30 feet from where we stood in broad day light. Two days ago, a weasel ran out into the road in front of me. We see domestic dogs and cats, and feral cats running around our area and property at least 4-5 days a week, and we've seen racoons sleeping in a hollow in one of our trees a few times. That's not to mention the hawks and owls we regularly see in the area and the occasional black bear that roams through.

A whole lot of potential predators...enough that I was even nervous about trying chickens; I didn't know if we had the capacity to adequate protect them and still give them the degree of freedom we thought they deserved. We feel we've balanced the risks, but it's still early. We'll see.

 

[yinzerchick]

I must be in the honeymoon stage too. We've had our chickens since March 28 of this year, put them out in the run when they were 5 weeks old. They free range all day and get locked up in the coop, that's in a run, at dusk. I've beem leaving the big coop door open because its so hot out, till about 11:00pm, I've seen a racoon in a tree near by at that time, but so far, we haven't had a problem...so far... We do have donkeys out near the run, so maybe... hopefully, they're doing their job and keeping the predators away. I get sick thinking about finding one of my ladies tore up or missing!
Oh, we also set up a couple little "panic rooms" out in the pasture, that they could run under if they're far away from the barn or coop, in case of an attack from above. Just some plywood and chicken wire. I just hope they realize what they're for and use them!