Help! Whole flock killed!

[cmom]

We're here for each other. Good luck with your new flock and have fun...

 

[MidGaMarine]

Kinda makes me want to recall my birds back to the covered run this morning, but We don't have many predators here. And I have an 8 ft. fence around the whole property, with many bushes and trees to hide in.

This is the worse it's EVER been around here. I was raised here and EVERYBODY free-ranged back then. I NEVER lost a bird to aerial predators back then.

 

[featherhead007]

This is the worse it's EVER been around here. I was raised here and EVERYBODY free-ranged back then. I NEVER lost a bird to aerial predators back then.

i will tell what i can do for you

 

[cmom]

When I had my first flock around 50 years ago, the birds had a coop but they were allowed to free range they didn't have a run/pen, but things are different now. Back then I didn't loose any birds to predators but I certainly have over the past several years. Everything likes chicken and if given the opportunity or if they can find a week point they will go for it. Now I have electric wire around my coops and pens, concrete under the gates to the pens and netting covering all of the pens. In some of the more vulnerable places around the fence I dug a ditch and buried some welded wire and fastened it to the bottom of the fence. I had seen some places where likely a coyote or fox had attempted to dig under the fence but once it touched the electric wire it aborted the attempt. I had some crappy netting up next to the coops because my other netting was 10' short. When I bought the crappy netting it was different than I thought it was but I put it up anyway. I have a picture of an owl going through the crappy netting. It had killed a couple birds before so I put a new piece of the crappy netting up but it didn't stop the owl from going through it. I had moved the birds to another coop and put a camera up in that pen. I have since replaced it with some good heavy duty netting. No more problems since.