Don't be lulled into a false sense of security, I have had hawks land inside my fence and try to take an adult turkey, luckily, they were unsuccessful. Hawks, especially the juvenile ones in the fall, are pretty fearless. Also, when they come after a chicken, regardless of size, most of the time they dive bomb them to stun them, and they are dead before they can recover.
I lock mine into a coop overnight. I also have runs attached to their coops that they are let out into in the mornings and stay in until about 1pm. I find they lay their eggs more in the nesting boxes and less all around the farm this way. In the afternoons, they are let out of the runs and are able to free range until they put themselves back into their coops, after which we replenish food and water for the next day, collect eggs and lock them up to start again the next day. This works very well for me and I have had minimal losses to to predators.
Having said that, I lost 2 hens to hawks last year, my next door neighbor lost 8 of his 16 Guinea Hens last year to hawks, and my across the street neighbor lost almost their entire flock to coyotes last year. Which is a reminder that unless your run is covered, any predator can get in, coyotes have no difficulty at all scaling a 6' fence. As a footnote, I also lost 2 hens when they tried to squeeze behind things while free ranging and got stuck. We searched everywhere both times and couldn't find them. Eventually, one was found behind some plywood leaned against the barn wall and one was in the wood pile...found them much, much too late...
their size 22 bodies didn't fit into the size 2 space...
By the way, I have a 20 acre farm, and while free ranging, the chicken only use about 2-3 acres to wander about, although I think if they were out all day, they may wander farther.
Very interesting to read the different ways people raise their chickens! Love it!
