Lost all chickens due to daytime raccoons

[TinyBirds]

We lost all 100+ of our chickens due to daytime hunting raccoons. We've had chickens for 4 yrs, and this was a first for us. The chickens have autodoors to enter wooden coops at night, so night-time is never a problem for us losing chickens, but first we had a bobcat, foxes, and hawks taking the chickens in daytime (originally free ranged) but then we built huge runs for each coop (5 ft high, roughly 50 ft by 30 ft for each coop), and covered the runs with netting to protect from hawks. All was well for about 2 yrs with that setup, but then the daytime raccoons wiped us out within a few month period. We caught them on camera so I'm positive it was the raccoons, often between 9am and 12 noon. My husband doesn't want to get a dog to protect the chickens, so I guess we'll have to resort to small runs that are raccoon proof outside each of the wooden night-time coops. I'm sad though because my original vision was of our lucky free range chickens we had when all this started. If I can only give them a smaller outdoor space (or do the chicken tractor idea), I''m not really sure if I even want to keep chickens any more. I guess it's still better than the chickens have if we buy eggs from the store though. Oh well, just venting I guess :-( We miss our chickens especially since some of them were the ones we got 4 yrs ago and we were really attached to them individually.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

We lost all 100+ of our chickens due to daytime hunting raccoons. ...I''m not really sure if I even want to keep chickens any more. I guess it's still better than the chickens [and eggs] we buy... from the store... We miss our chickens especially since some of them were the ones we got 4 yrs ago...

I see so many people on here who refuse to kill chicken killing predators but claim to love their chickens.

I am not judging but it seems to me that if these folks loved their birds as much as they claimed they do, that they would not mind protecting their birds from danger.

I fail to see any difference between store bought chicken and free range chickens if the free range birds are forced to moonlight as raccoon chum. If there is a difference, in my book it is in favor of the commercially produced chicken who isn't required to pose as the centerpiece at a coon banquet.

 

[thomasboyle]

Sorry for your losses. What were the fences made of? Were they electrified? I have my chickens protected by electric net fences, and so far, I have not had any losses since putting up the electric nets. That might be an option for you. I too had hoped to let the chickens roam all over the yard being free, but the bobcats, foxes, raccoons all had other ideas.

 

[lalaland]

If you can't afford the electric net fences ( I can't) you can try electric fences - a fence charger might run you 30 bucks or so, and then you need the wire, but it is usually less expensive.

 

[TinyBirds]

Thanks for the responses! I think we'll try the electric wire in the smaller areas. We have one all along the creek already but it does short out a lot because branches fall on it.
So far we caught and killed about 15 raccoons since this all started, but there are apparently many more than that around here. Now I do feel bad about killing the raccoons though too, since it didn't seem to slow down the predation of our chickens at all. Within a couple of months they were all gone.