Ideas on keeping predators out?

[mtgrl]

Lol that is true. There are a few other houses out here but they're hardly close enough to even count as neighbours.

We don't have a *huge* snake problem out here, but they do pop up once in a while. I always figured as far as eating birds go though they'd have to be pretty big, am I right? Would ones that can fit through hardware cloth actually be able to swallow a bird? I have a kingsnake about that size... I could see him maybe eating a small chick, but I think he'd have trouble taking down an adult quail. He could probably do it, though, but I could see where he might not want to lol.

That is something to think about, though... bears are a lot more conspicuous but snakes, how could you possibly keep them out? Especially if I start raising the chicks outside I'll have to think about some way to keep them out of the coop. Maybe screen?

 

[chickengeorgeto]

We don't have a BIG snake problem here either. Here is one of our little rattle snakes.

 

[mtgrl]

Holy cow! I've never seen one that big before. That's a nice trophy. What did you do with it? Looks like it would make a nice pair of boots and a tasty meal.

Had an idea as far as snake proofing the garden... assuming your snakes are not monstrous maneaters like that one of course lol... apparently snakes get hopelessly tangled in duct tape. Just bordering the fence with some inside-out duct tape might be pretty effective, if I can find a way to keep the tape sticky.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

I can't claim bragging rights on that rattle snake. A boy over round Waycross, Ga. killed it. He and a hunting buddy was waiting in their wild hog blind for a shot at some Bar-B-Q when Mr. No-Shoulders stuck his head in the blind to borrow a cup of sugar and say "howdy". If I had been there I would have gone hog blind myself, wild hogs or no wild hogs.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/515899/best-way-ive-found-yet-to-deal-with-snake-problems

Look at the above link for ideas on how to solve your snake problem. You get extra credit if you can ID the snakes in the traps. Hint, you don't want to stick your mitts in there with those snakes either.

A chicken raising friend of mine over in Plantersville, Mississippi stuck his hand into a pile of dead leaves with a snake like those in the link two years ago this October and got bit. He never even went to the doctor even though his hand swelled up like a pumpkin. He's better how, but for a while there it looked like his dang fool hand was going to fall off.

So don't you go sticking your hands in a minnow trap with a snake that's strange to you.

 

[mtgrl]

Lol I'll remember that.

Ok so this morning... what in the heck just woke me up an hour ago? I was soundly sleeping on the couch when I heard that mysterious noise again. Sounds like a nasally cross between a dog barking and an eagle screeching, and then all of a sudden it made a very felinish noise. Whatever it was I heard in the yard just before the sun rose up and it kept getting closer and closer to the coop until I shouted at it out the window, but it didn't leave. It slowly retreated and I could hear it in the yard for another 5 minutes or so but couldn't see anything because it was still too dark. It left before the sun rose. It was right outside the window. Really freaked me out.

UPDATE: Ok so apparently it's a fox that's stalking my quail. Good thing I have that crossbow...
OH HEY now I really know what a fox says! But I can't describe it

 

[Spongegirl]

Maybe its a chupacabra lol

 

[mtgrl]

Lol that's what I thought at first! But listening to audio files and it sounds exactly like the fox call

 

[chickengeorgeto]

Long, Long ago in a far and distant galaxy: two boys (I was not one of them) was waiting in the dark to jack light a deer when they heard a courting fox headed their way. These two brave young men abandoned the spotlight and the shotgun to be able to run faster.

I don't have any first person experience with puppies and bull whips, but a love sick fox sounds to me like someone was trying to whip a puppy to death with a barbed wire bull whip. It'll make your skin crawl.

 

[mtgrl]

Seriously. Me and my brother were watching horror movies and at first we thought it was a sound effect on the movie, then we realized it was right outside the window. Scared the crap out of us.

Update on my quail-guarding vigil: I was up all night last night because it was a full moon and all the critters were out and about, and they were all looking for a midnight snack. It was pretty dark because it's been overcast the last couple nights, so I didn't get a look at what was banging around out there, but the last critter I saw was a skunk. I almost shot him with the pistol crossbow and then he slipped away into the trees.

 

[heartsizedfarm]

We have lots of predators here, and when my parents raised chickens, it was one of the main reasons they gave it up. They couldn't keep the predators out of the fenced in area. We get raccoons, skunks, weasels, bobcats, coyotes, wolves, foxes, bears, mountain lions, hawks, owls, and eagles frequently, also my neighbors have lots of dogs. I am planning on raising quail in the backyard, and since they are such small birds, I want to make sure they are as secure as possible. Anybody have some good ideas for a design that would predator-proof my backyard?

Bears are a big concern because they show up annually at fall to eat apples off our trees, they have caused lots of trouble in the past, and with their strength, there is little that can keep them out.

We also have a big raccoon and two skunks that come every night to eat from my cat's food. Other predators are all very common around here, since we live in the prairie next to the mountains and encounter them often.

The area I would be keeping the quail in would be a garden area in the backyard, half of it would be open field with tall grass (prime gamebird habitat) and in the other half I would plant corn and sunflower for cover. I plan to fence in the entire area like a giant cage, with wire on the ground, about 8 feet high around, and a wire top to keep the quail in and eagles out. I was going to put hardware cloth around the lower half of the fence (about two feet high) and use chicken wire for the rest. Would that be sufficient, or should I just use hardware cloth all the way up? How about for the roof and ground? The problem is the expense.

I would also have to fence in a passage to the coop, which is outside of the fenced area, and secure the wood coop from predators.

Outside of the immediate garden area where I would keep the quails is a larger fenced in area. I thought I might put wire around this area too, so that if a predator were to get in, they would have to get through 2 barriers instead of just one to get to the quail. In this fenced in area, I thought I would have some bigger kinds of birds that could chase away some of the smaller predators, like maybe peacocks or guineas-anybody know of a good bird for that? Also, that way, the predator might just take those birds and spare the quail.

So I just was wondering if anybody has some suggestions for added security. Maybe barbwire, etc... what's the best thing to use, and what would be a good layout?

Go solar!