Hi! I am a beginner in Texas!

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Hi, i just started chicken keeping to and im also from texas! Your coop and run looks nice and safe, i think you will have some happy chickens
 
Hello Jen!
400

Welcome to BYC and the coop! There's a lot of great peeps here! Feel free to ask lots of questions. But most of all, make yourself at home. I'm so glad you decided to joined the BYC family. Good luck with your girls.
 
Michael OShay said:
Snakes can and will go through the openings as well as rats and weasels. Also, even if they can't break the welded wire, raccoons will reach through the openings and grab chickens and tear them apart. I would strongly recommend covering that welded wire with hardware cloth.
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Do we have weasels in Texas? I have never heard of that! As far as I know we have coyotes, raccoon, armadillo, hawks, snakes, bunnies, deer, mice/rats, turkeys and wild pigs. The turkeys came up and checked out the chickens a few days ago. I am pretty sure they were just eating the chicken treats the girls throw in the run because they spill a lot.
 
WhenInRhome said:
Do we have weasels in Texas? I have never heard of that!
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The long-tailed weasel is very common in some areas of Texas, and can be found across most of the state, including Rhome. There is a map at http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/tmot1/images/dmap237.jpg showing the distribution of the long-tailed weasel in Texas. These are not predators that you want to fool around with. Not only can they slip through the openings in your welded wire, but a single weasel is capable of wiping out your entire flock in a single night. However, they cannot slip through the small mesh of hardware cloth.
 
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Michael OShay said:
The long-tailed weasel is very common in some areas of Texas, and can be found across most of the state, including Rhome. There is a map at http://www.nsrl.ttu.edu/tmot1/images/dmap237.jpg showing the distribution of the long-tailed weasel in Texas. These are not predators that you want to fool around with. Not only can they slip through the openings in your welded wire, but a single weasel is capable of wiping out your entire flock in a single night. However, they cannot slip through the small mesh of hardware cloth.
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That is crazy! I have lived in north Texas my entire life and have never heard of a weasel here! I have heard there are bobcats but I have never seen one. Talked to the hubby about putting up another layer of the mesh. The cost is going to freak him out. That stuff is crazy expensive! We started building a chicken tractor yesterday with it to house some 6 week old chicks till they are big enough to add with the big girls and it was so expensive. I think we are close to $900 in on these chickens to far. He was telling me yesterday we could just buy farm eggs for life for that!
 
WhenInRhome said:
That is crazy! I have lived in north Texas my entire life and have never heard of a weasel here! I have heard there are bobcats but I have never seen one. Talked to the hubby about putting up another layer of the mesh. The cost is going to freak him out. That stuff is crazy expensive! We started building a chicken tractor yesterday with it to house some 6 week old chicks till they are big enough to add with the big girls and it was so expensive. I think we are close to $900 in on these chickens to far. He was telling me yesterday we could just buy farm eggs for life for that!
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I was raised out in the country in Greenville, TX, about 90 miles east of Rhome, and in the 30 years I lived there, I saw two weasels. I never personally lost any of my chickens to weasels, but I had a neighbor who had chicken wire on his coop/run and a weasel got into his coop and killed 6 chickens. It left the birds in a pile and ate only the back of their heads and necks. I never saw a bobcat in all those years, but several chicken owners in our area (including myself once) lost chickens to racoons and opossums.
 
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