how to protect chickens from cyotes

[ChickenCanoe]

You'd be surprised at how many people initially use chicken wire. Till they lose birds.

Agree with all the others recommending electric fence. That works well for coyotes. You likely have many more types of predators than that.
If you build it - they will come.
My family has raised chickens within a mile of here and other locations since the 1800s I had secured all the buildings from raccoons and coyotes. Never had a problem with mink in all that time. Walmart built a store a quarter mile away as the crow flies and cut down 80 acres of forest along the creek at the bottom of the hill from the house. The mink they drove off found me. Every night they got into another building killing every bird till I got a baby monitor and stopped it in the act of killing another house of birds.
I lost $2000 of birds to mink after 140 years of never having an issue.
The phrase, "I've never had a problem" always needs the word YET to be added.

 

[jopheso]

I would like throw out that Initially electric wire sounded like a big pain in the butt and I kind of avoided the idea. Later on we got pigs and I promptly decided to bite the bullet and use electric wire for their pin and oh man I LOVE THE STUFF! Once you get it setup it is easy to adjust and manage especially for something small like wrapping a chicken coop/run. Just my 2 cents. dont be scared of the electric wire if you havent used it before.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

just relised that that "chicke wire" was hardware cloth omg i am so stupid

Hey, that's awesome!

No stupidity here... just opportunities to learn!

We all start somewhere. Learning the terminology and in and outs of different things can be fun. The fact that you are willing to learn and change IF needed, means you are off to a great start and BYC is a wonderful resource.

Just remember sometimes what works for others may or may not work for you. We do our best and switch it up when we learn something better. We all have different set ups, climates, goals, and thought processes. And that's OK we are here to share our experience so others can have their best experience possible.

Welcome to the chicken family, boy are you in for an adventure!

 

[lazy gardener]

CC, you could be writing about the predator shift in my area. I live on a dead end road. Only 6 houses. Last spring, the logging trucks started coming. They have been logging the land at the end of my road since last spring, and have logged every single day since then. Pulp trucks going out of here on a daily basis. I would love to do an aerial pass over the area. The land is posted, so I can't go up and take a look see. If I am guessing correctly, they are putting a road extension through, along with eventual housing developments. If that don't get the wild life moving around, I don't know what will!

 

[JasperMoon]

Hey, that's awesome!

No stupidity here... just opportunities to learn!

We all start somewhere. Learning the terminology and in and outs of different things can be fun. The fact that you are willing to learn and change IF needed, means you are off to a great start and BYC is a wonderful resource.

Just remember sometimes what works for others may or may not work for you. We do our best and switch it up when we learn something better. We all have different set ups, climates, goals, and thought processes. And that's OK we are here to share our experience so others can have their best experience possible.

Welcome to the chicken family, boy are you in for an adventure!

thank you!!

 

[JasperMoon]

You'd be surprised at how many people initially use chicken wire. Till they lose birds.

Agree with all the others recommending electric fence. That works well for coyotes. You likely have many more types of predators than that.
If you build it - they will come.
My family has raised chickens within a mile of here and other locations since the 1800s I had secured all the buildings from raccoons and coyotes. Never had a problem with mink in all that time. Walmart built a store a quarter mile away as the crow flies and cut down 80 acres of forest along the creek at the bottom of the hill from the house. The mink they drove off found me. Every night they got into another building killing every bird till I got a baby monitor and stopped it in the act of killing another house of birds.
I lost $2000 of birds to mink after 140 years of never having an issue.
The phrase, "I've never had a problem" always needs the word YET to be added.

thank you, and oh my gosh that is terrible, i also realised when i looked up hardware cloth that what i thought was chicken wire was infact Hardware cloth

 

[JasperMoon]

Not stupid. Lucky! Are you shutting them in the coop every night, and are all openings on coop covered with 1/2" hardware cloth?

Agreed, if you have coyote, and for that matter, any large predators, electric fence is good.

yes, they are always in a closed area, and i will be adding a door to there hole to keep them locked up at night so they cant go outside

 

[ChickenCanoe]

CC, you could be writing about the predator shift in my area. I live on a dead end road. Only 6 houses. Last spring, the logging trucks started coming. They have been logging the land at the end of my road since last spring, and have logged every single day since then. Pulp trucks going out of here on a daily basis. I would love to do an aerial pass over the area. The land is posted, so I can't go up and take a look see. If I am guessing correctly, they are putting a road extension through, along with eventual housing developments. If that don't get the wild life moving around, I don't know what will!

When we lived in a more urban area, we never experienced much wildlife except squirrels and birds. There was a riding stable with lots of forest trails just a few miles away along an interstate. They sold the stable and all the land was cleared for industry and an office park. I never saw so many raccoons, possums, etc. that were displaced.
I never really noticed how heavily forested the area around me was till all the subdivisions started being carved out of the woods. It isn't all gone but the wildlife have less area to work.

thank you, and oh my gosh that is terrible, i also realised when i looked up hardware cloth that what i thought was chicken wire was infact Hardware cloth

Some of this stuff one needs to learn isn't necessarily intuitive until you have exposure.
I was fortunate to grow up on 2 farms. The old 40 acre homestead in the suburbs walking distance from where I live now with vegetables, orchards and a hen house with 100 leghorns for egg sales. That's where I learned about broody jail cages. We had another farther out with row crops, cattle, horses, hogs and pheasant.
I guess I just absorbed knowledge by osmosis.

yes, they are always in a closed area, and i will be adding a door to there hole to keep them locked up at night so they cant go outside

Since you'll be closing the door, just make sure they still have adequate ventilation.

 

[IdyllwildAcres]

CC, you could be writing about the predator shift in my area. I live on a dead end road. Only 6 houses. Last spring, the logging trucks started coming. They have been logging the land at the end of my road since last spring, and have logged every single day since then. Pulp trucks going out of here on a daily basis. I would love to do an aerial pass over the area. The land is posted, so I can't go up and take a look see. If I am guessing correctly, they are putting a road extension through, along with eventual housing developments. If that don't get the wild life moving around, I don't know what will!

I wish I was near you we could fly my drone over and get some pics!

Gary

 

[lazy gardener]

That would be awesome. Actually a friend offered to take us up flying a month or so ago, but we had family plans that day. I'd ought to ask him to do a fly over next time he's up.