Hi, and sorry we didn't post here sooner.

[Little Farm Girl]

Hello, we live in East Texas on abut 7 acres, I know this isn't really a good "introduction", but we have a big problem we need help with right now(continue reading to find out), and there isn't much more to know about us, lol.

We have a big barn, with a 6 ft chain link fence yard attached to it for our laying hens that free range in the day and are locked in the barn at night, we have an additional 6ft chainlink fence section attached to the back of the barn(but does not have access to in the barn),but we have a coop back there for the breeding birds. We have a bunch of various chicken tractors/breeding pens behind all of that, and then we have a few little hutches and such in our 4ft chainlink fenced backyard, We had a total of about 150 chickens last month, but who knows how many we have now due to soooo many recent attacks. We also have a non helpful mini Donkey and mini Mule, lol. We can't build a fence around our whole 7 acres, and we can't put chicken wire around the base of any of the coops, pens, fences or barn. We haven't had success with traps either.

What should we do/get to protect our birds?

Thank you so much for any ideas/opinions/suggestions.

 

[Beer can]

Hello, we live in East Texas on abut 7 acres, I know this isn't really a good "introduction", but we have a big problem we need help with right now(continue reading to find out), and there isn't much more to know about us, lol.

We have a big barn, with a 6 ft chain link fence yard attached to it for our laying hens that free range in the day and are locked in the barn at night, we have an additional 6ft chainlink fence section attached to the back of the barn(but does not have access to in the barn),but we have a coop back there for the breeding birds. We have a bunch of various chicken tractors/breeding pens behind all of that, and then we have a few little hutches and such in our 4ft chainlink fenced backyard, We had a total of about 150 chickens last month, but who knows how many we have now due to soooo many recent attacks. We also have a non helpful mini Donkey and mini Mule, lol. We can't build a fence around our whole 7 acres, and we can't put chicken wire around the base of any of the coops, pens, fences or barn. We haven't had success with traps either.

What should we do/get to protect our birds?

Thank you so much for any ideas/opinions/suggestions.

Predators?
Simple cheap electric fence may help you out quite a bit.

 

[Little Farm Girl]

Predators?
Simple cheap electric fence may help you out quite a bit.

That's a good idea, but we have so many little randomly placed, spread out pens around and such I don't think we could wire it all in, but we will definitely think about it. Thanks!

 

[Helloworld]

Can you put pics of their area?

What type of predators and are they on the ground or flying?

Flying? Thats easy. Bird netting on amazon is pretty large sizes and pretty affordable.

Please don’t take offense and we have not seen pics but your farm sounds really discombobulated and you may need to bring everyone closer together, take some of your pens and fix the better ones with that material, or load up 1/2 your chickens and go to an auction and take that money and buy more material. Even without looking at it, I think there is so many “buildings and cages” that predators from below have ample opportunities to eat without out you seeing them.

So if during the day, I would look into netting and electric wire. You may need to put their cages closer together and get rid of others.
At night, a better placed that can be locked. Lessen your farm to make it better.

 

[Little Farm Girl]

I think we have multiple predators getting them, sometimes the heads are gone, sometimes the whole bird is there or maybe just it's chest eaten out, sometimes we find nothing but feathers and intestines in our neighbors yard, and sometimes the bird is just gone with maybe one or two of it feathers missing, etc. But our very most recent predator that tries to get in every night leaves paw prints just like a dogs paw, but have really long nails/claws.

 

[Little Farm Girl]

Can you put pics of their area?

I would prefer not to(just for safety), but I will see. Thanks!

 

[getaclue]

I agree with electric fencing in your situation.

 

[DobieLover]

Hello and welcome to BYC! Glad you joined.
Electric fence.

 

[CLovesDucks]

@Little Farm Girl Raccoons are notorious for mutilating, but not eating (or carrying off) the entire bird. I am not sure if that is your culprit, but I would take it into consideration... and I’m sorry you’re going through this! Please keep us posted!

 

[007Sean]

Howdy and Welcome to Backyard Chickens.

Happy to have you here with us. Enjoy your time here at BYC! You may like to join in on the chat on the Texas thread, over on the "Where am I? Where are you!" forum. Here's a link to the Texas thread.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/texas.44/

Thanks for joining our community!