Keeping Them In? (Master Escapees)

[aart]

They're unable to fly over the electric fencing and there's no small spaces for them to squeeze out from.

What kind of electric fencing?
Some pics might help.

I can't lock them up in the coop yard as they will attack the younger hens that free range with them. They haven't gotten use to them yet but will allow them to sleep in the coop at night.

This might be part of the problem.

Knowing more about...
your flock size(numbers, ages, genders),
your coop and run(size in feet by feet with pics).
might help too.

 

[townchicks]

Set your alarm and get up and watch them.

 

[KikiDeAnime]

Set your alarm and get up and watch them.

Alarms don't work for me. Never have.

 

[jvls1942]

If you have holes large enough for chickens to get out/in, then you have plenty of holes for predators to get in..
build your fences and coops, not to keep chickens in, but to keep predators out..

 

[KikiDeAnime]

If you have holes large enough for chickens to get out/in, then you have plenty of holes for predators to get in..
build your fences and coops, not to keep chickens in, but to keep predators out..

Only the hawks are our predators in the area we live in.

 

[Rysktal]

We had to put a second fence around our electric fence because our chickens were in fact jumping up and squeezing through the larger mesh holes. Crazy birds!

Some of them can definitely fly out as well with little effort, then think they can't get back in. Weirdly, the secondary fence has deterred them from flying out any more.

 

[Squeakles]

We had a fence that was about the same height and I watched one of my girls jump straight up onto the top of it (bare wire), and then flap down over the other side. She hadn't even flapped her wings getting up there, it was just a straight jump. If I hadn't actually seen her do it I probably wouldn't have thought it possible. I ended up having to add another half a metre to the top of it and that seemed to work as they've not escaped since.

 

[aart]

Only the hawks are our predators in the area we live in.

Don't kid yourself.

 

[KikiDeAnime]

Don't kid yourself.

We use to have raccoons back when I was around 5 or 6 but the city started a group to be notified about them so they could catch them, after a kid was attacked by one, and kill them right away. We no longer have raccoons around our town now. Only hawks.

 

[townchicks]

Probably just wilier raccoons.