Just Made the Decision

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gww said:
Hi and thanks for the add. I am Gary and live in the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia, Canada. I have never had chickens before and just made the decision to. My neighbours have free rangers that come over and hang out all the time, so I thought I might as well get a 4 pack of my own. I see this sight as the ultimate resource for raising chickens. I look forward to learning lots and sharing my experience with you all. Cheers.
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Welcome. Just to prepare you...it is wonderful to have free range chickens for their mental health. But, please know that every decision has its pros and cons. You will lose chickens if you free range, it is only a matter of time.
 
triciayoung said:
Welcome. Just to prepare you...it is wonderful to have free range chickens for their mental health. But, please know that every decision has its pros and cons. You will lose chickens if you free range, it is only a matter of time.
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This is so true! We have a forest behind us and farmer's fields on the other three sides. In our first year, we lost a chicken every few months. We thought our border collie should have been enough, as she did a great job keeping the riff-raff out of our yard.

We then purchased many solar motion lights, giant wind spinners, and even several decorative solar lights. That helped immensely. Then we got a second dog, corgi, and she is also wonderful about guarding our yard from predators. We get everything up to bears here, and in the past several years, have not lost a single chicken. Could it happen still, yup! All it takes is for a chicken(s) to go wandering into the farmer's fields and a fox lying in waiting. We train them out of there as much as possible. The border collie does perimeter checks, plus both dogs frequent the forest behind us, which helps a lot too.

On our trail cams, we see fox, raccoons, coyotes, bear, and skunks. Only the bear have made it to our yard a few times, but haven't gone for the chickens, yet.
 

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