Hello all, I'm new to the forum and chickens, for the most part. When I was younger, 2-7 y/o, I lived on a 200 acre farm in southern MD. I raised chickens as part of 4H. I don't really remember it since I was so young. At 8 I moved out to Colorado and to the city/suburbs. Fast forward 24 years to last year. I lived in Denver and was eating a lot of eggs as part of my nutrition plan and hated paying for the them. So I decided to gt some chickens. I looked into the laws here and got my permit, did some research and built a coop for them. I bought 6 Golden Comets and 2 Rhode Island Reds. They were a blast! I let them free range in the back of my yard, which was about 15' wide by 15' deep. I had a 6' privacy fence around my yard. Being in the city I didn't think I had to worry about predators. How wrong I was I came out one morning and found the 6 larger birds dead and my two smaller ones gone. Later that day my neighbor said he watched a coyote use his pop up camper, which he conveniently parked against my fence, as a step, jumped into my yard, then jumped onto of the coop back out of the yard with two chickens in its mouth. Sad day for all. Well now I'm moving into a house in Littleton, CO. It has a nice size backyard so I'm going to do chickens again, but right this time. I'm plan on 10 ladies this time and building a 10'x12' coop with a completely fenced, buried 2' down and all, 10'x5' run. My girl really loved the chickens and my son is almost 1, so he will get to enjoy them growing up as well. I can't wait to get all settled in so I can start building the coop for the ladies. I'll get them this spring and we can't wait. I look forward to reading and learning a lot from the people here. Jason
Us folks here in CO have a lot of predators to worry about. I battle them constantly. I had a fox stare at me from 30 yards away yesterday as I did my chicken chores. Foxes, coyotes, skunks, possums, martens, lions, bears, hawks......the list seems endless. Build that coop and run bulletproof the first time and it will save a lot of time and heartache in the future. The larger the run the better for our chickens. I extended ours from 5x8 to 5x16 and I think the girls really appreciated it. The coop is 5x5. A smaller coop and a larger run seems to keep them happier with all of our sunny days in CO. They stay out all day and then literally pass out as soon as they head to the roost. I only have 6 hens in my space and I feel like many more would be crowded. Good luck to you.
Yeah I've seen some predators out where I'm at in Littleton, but never figured I'd have an issue with them off 1st Ave & Federal in Denver. Learning lesson I guess.
Welcome to BYC! Predators accustomed to living in proximity to development are the worst. They have little fear of humans, so they are very difficult to ward off. Instead we must fortify our coops and runs to keep them out. Take Bocrates's advice and build a chicken fortress.
Hello and Welcome to BYC! Good luck with your new girls, X2 on the bigger you can do the run the happier you will all be. Sorry about the loss of your first flock. Coyotes are getting so used to humans they are almost as bad as stray dogs.
Welcome to BYC! Sorry for your losses have you checked out the Predators and Pests forum? Good luck to you. https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/13/predators-and-pests
