I need y’all to tell me if this is crazy.

[SamanthaDianne]

Lmao so I literally laid in bed last night and couldn’t sleep thinking of exactly what I was going to do to their new house. On the plus side I have a plan but damn I’m sleepy now!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

You are not crazy for thinking your chickens need more protection. Your DH is crazy if he thinks y'all will still have chickens in a year if nothing changes!

Before I got any chickens, I invested what my family members thought was an unreasonable amount of money into a nice, secure 8x10 building and nice fenced yard with an apron. I just told them I wasn't planning on replacing my chickens every couple of weeks due to varmints (like they all did, until they gave up on chickens entirely). And I haven't. Eight - no, now NINE years later I can honestly say more of my losses have been to old age than to predators.

 

[aart]

Nope, you're not crazy.
Not sure wild hogs will be after chickens or maybe their feed,
but I bet they can be destructive as all get out if they decide they want in.

 

[sourland]

This may be a really stupid question but will owls go into a building and get a chicken? It’s like an open on one end a frame barn.

Yes they will. I even had one enter a pigeon loft through the bobs when I left them unsecured one night. I removed him, and the next night he was back on the landing platform trying to get into the loft.

 

[MomJones]

My favorite quote, from Justin Rhodes: "Everything likes chicken." Here in South Carolina we have a real problem with hawks--which are protected--as well as rat snakes, possums, raccoons and pretty much whatever else you can think of. I think we all agree here that the more secure you can make your chickens' habitat the better.

We worked on our big chicken run for 6 months--chicken wire above and on all sides, hardware cloth down 12 inches below the foundation--and still had a problem with rat snakes, so we had to surround the entire base with a layer of bird netting. <<-- grateful for the bird netting btw, it traps snakes and they suffocate.

Also, we have one dog who is very good at killing varmints on the property so that helps also. And the hawks who are ever-present in the skies above have zero opportunity to get to them.

 

[K0k0shka]

Not sure wild hogs will be after chickens or maybe their feed,
but I bet they can be destructive as all get out if they decide they want in.

Hogs do like chicken. Even domestic pigs like chicken. Maybe not all of them and maybe not all will think it's worth the trouble to get to them, but some certainly have a taste for chicken and are willing to do the work. We had to make sure our pigs and our chickens never crossed paths back in the day after one of the pigs decided to treat himself to some chicken dinner.

 

[Folly's place]

Hogs are omnivores too!
Mary

 

[Don 27]

My laying hens are in a very secure structure nothing can get in or out during the night. Plus it's surrounded by an electric fence . Now I have a feral flock of game jungle fowl chickens that I let sleep in the trees and hatch out there own chicks. But they re not for the beginner they require me to have traps constantly set to catch predators and I still lose birds to predators every now and then.Tt's something I do as a hobby because i like having feral chickens.

 

[SamanthaDianne]

My husband is coming back home tonight and he already knows what’s on the agenda for Saturday morning he’s not thrilled at all but he knew I was semi crazy along time ago. You should have seen when we got our goats as bottle babies I was so worried that I let them sleep in a dog kennel in the house at night for like the first whole week. Thank you guys for all your help!