Well its the first night in the coop for 5 of my 14 chickens. I was feeling pretty confident in it's safety... then I read the sticky poll and read about 30 different predator kills chicken stories, now I'm freaked out again. The place for my chickens is a rectangle, coop is a square on the end, then the run. The run is protected with 1 inch poultry wire on all sides and has this metal wire fencing stuff to create a skirt around the coop/run. It's stapled pretty heavily duty to the base of the coop/run and then staked down with tent poles all around the end of the skirt. Am I forgetting anything?
I think my girls are fearless, I have my one roo out there with them but I'm not sure they have any concept of predators just yet. I went out there and they were all laying on the floor of the run, some were right up against the edge of the run. I heard raccoons will try to reach in after them? We have so many raccoons here, I just saw 3 of them the other night in a pack when it tripped my motion detector. I don't think the girls have figured out the concept of going up the ramp into the coop part. I picked them all up and carried them and placed them into the coop but I don't have any open/shutting doors to my coop, it's just kind of a square in the side for them to crawl in through.
I guess I was just seeing if anyone knew anything I was missing. I also noticed I had a hard time with one of my chickens, she got out and I had to chase her down and when I finally did place her in the coop she was like frozen with fear, wouldn't even stand up or walk around... is she going to be okay? Thanks.
I think my girls are fearless, I have my one roo out there with them but I'm not sure they have any concept of predators just yet. I went out there and they were all laying on the floor of the run, some were right up against the edge of the run. I heard raccoons will try to reach in after them? We have so many raccoons here, I just saw 3 of them the other night in a pack when it tripped my motion detector. I don't think the girls have figured out the concept of going up the ramp into the coop part. I picked them all up and carried them and placed them into the coop but I don't have any open/shutting doors to my coop, it's just kind of a square in the side for them to crawl in through.
I guess I was just seeing if anyone knew anything I was missing. I also noticed I had a hard time with one of my chickens, she got out and I had to chase her down and when I finally did place her in the coop she was like frozen with fear, wouldn't even stand up or walk around... is she going to be okay? Thanks.
