How late will a chicken stay out?

[Justicedog]

I had a neighbor's dog (let's call it Satan) get into my backyard and harass my chickens. Satan had a mouthful of my Lavender chicken's feather's in it's mouth, Lavie went into my house when I went out to get Satan and she appears to be okay. I've got 3 chickens missing. I know one of them is fine as I saw her. The others I think went over my fence to some wooded area and I don't see them. 2 of my 5 are back in the coop and I don't think they're leaving. I do have it open as the others need to come back. How late would they stay out if they're going to come back? I don't want to leave the coop open all night, but I don't want them to come back and have the coop door closed.

 

[fluffycrow]

As soon as it's nightfall, they'll look to roost. That may be the coop, a shrub, a tree branch, the roof of a house...etc. If they are to come back, they'll do it while they can see

 

[EggSighted4Life]

How late would they stay out if they're going to come back?

Sometimes they stay hidden until the next day.. close up after roost time and hope for the best tomorrow.

 

[K0k0shka]

Chickens have very poor low light vision. When it starts to get dark, even before it's fully dark, their vision drops sharply and they'll look for a safe space to spend the night rather than try to find their way back. So if it's getting dark and hard to see, don't wait for them to come back. They're probably settling down somewhere to overnight, and will try to make their way back once it's light enough the next day. And definitely talk to Satan's owner about keeping their beast on their own property.

 

[Justicedog]

Satan had killed my old, half blind epileptic chicken this summer. They'd reinforced their fence and had promised to supervise her better. It's a chain link fence and during the summer there were bushes that were blocking any view and maybe also the height. I think it's getting in by jumping the fence as it's only 3 or 4 feet. Also, the neighbor had gotten lax in supervising the dog.

I've also not been letting my chickens out every day.

I have a dog (of course my dog runs out during all this and is all, here's a dog I can play with, wait, why won't you play with me, I'm much more fun than the chickens, I'll have to get a livestock guardian dog) but I understand dogs are dogs and I don't want anything bad to happen to that dog, but they need to keep it on a leash. Though if these 3 don't come home, I may not be so nice.

 

[Justicedog]

Good news - they are back. My husband climbed over the 3 foot fence and wandered the compost pile and got them back. One made it back herself but two of them couldn't figure out how to get over the fence, one was doing her mayday call, so we were able to grab them and get them back safe and sound. I even got a cuddle in with one of them, and these are not a cuddle flock.

Thanks for the reassurance.

 

[fluffycrow]

Glad you could get the birds back!