My family has recently taken on raising some chicks for eggs. They are just over 4 months now and although I did figure free ranging was just not going to work due to predators we gave it a try. It has been less than a month that we began free ranging and I lost a rooster two days ago. This happened during daylight hours. I always closed them back up by dusk. Not sure what got him but we live in a rural area. Could have been fox, dog, hawk, etc. So, ultimately, I guess we will not be able to free range which really sucks but I am still curious how others make this work and not lose their flock. Shoot, I see plenty of people in my area that free range and can't figure out how they do it, Maybe they just take their chances and accept losing birds every now and then. Thing is, if it's a fox we all know they'll be back on a regular basis for the rest of the flock at some point. So, what do you all do???