I have three hens and put them up every night. They free range on weekends but during the week while we're at work I keep them in their run - a 7x10 chain link dog kennel, well reinforced with hardware cloth, pigwire 2x4" fencing on the floor and up the sides, cattle fencing on the roof with chicken wire attached to that! I know there are more than 500 zip-ties holding all of these miscellaneous wire contraptions together, as I zipped most of them myself way back when we were preparing for our first bird! (We live in a rural wooded area and there are way too many critters out there who'd love to have chicken for their nighttime snack. The owls especially scare me, as we believe one got one of our kittens some years back1) If my girls are ranging during the day, they'll go into the kennel at night and roost. We'll just shut the gate to keep them in and later in the evening (sometimes as late as 9 ro 10 PM), we'll go put them up in the coop for the night. I've found I have to put them up in reverse pecking order, else I'll be battling one in-two out for a good time. My fayoumi, who is very breed-typical -- flighty, skittish, loud, and does NOT like to be handled, used to just hop off the perch and run up the ramp in order to avoid me touching her. (Ever hear a fayoumi holler when she thinks you might touch her in the next week or so? Sheesh. Banshee rings a bell.) Over the last year, I've actually socialized her to the point that she'll hop up on my forearm and ride to the ramp, where she'll squawk once or twice, the run up the ramp. A little aside here -- while she seems to be at the bottom of the pecking order when they're in the kennel or ranging, she seems to be the queen of the palace once they're in the coop! She'll be all vocal and mouthy while I pick up the other two and place/push (when necessary) in the coop. The other two wait patiently on the perch for me to come get them when it's time to go up. It's our little routine -- every so often, they'll see me coming and hop off the perches and act like they've not eaten in years, making it hard to catch and coop them. So long as it's not too cold outside, I'll just let them be on those nights, as I do not have time for the chicken catching game!
One thing that we have to watch for is chicken hawks. Even though there are houses around us we have lost 3 of our hens to them. One hen was taken not 15 feet from me. I ran at the hawk but it still did not drop my little banty. So the hens don't go out during the day unless one of us is out there. Another major predator is racoons. We have to lock the flock up in their secure covered pen every night. Minks and weasels are also a concern. 10 years ago I lost a flock of 15 black astrolops to a weasel in one night when it pulled a piece of the wall out and got in. It was a horrible site. You learn with time though and we have a little fort knox.
