Lost my first bird to a coyote.

TCollier

Chirping
9 Years
Jun 22, 2010
176
1
99
Franklin, Ohio
I lost my first bird to a coyote but unfortunately for the coyote I saw it while it was eating the guinea. 175 yards is no challenge for me and my .223 Remington SPS. I moved to my new farm in July and have lost nothing until now. My coops are rock solid and have never had a problem with anything getting a bird while they were in the coops but I free range all my birds all day long. I plan on putting up electric fence around 2 acres for my 60 birds and 2 goats to roam on. My plan is to run a strand of electric fence every 6 inches up to 5 feet high and use a 6000 volt fence charger good for 20 miles. I am hoping this will keep 90% of the little nasties out. I do trap so I will actively be going after the coyote, coon, mink and so on just to keep their numbers down. The fence should handle the coons and coyotes but not the smaller stuff like mink. What are your thoughts on this? If anything does happen to get into this area and I see it it will not survive but as we all know we cannot see everything all the time..
 
I use electric fencing as my second line of defense. My first line is hard wire fencing- 24 inches of 1/2 inch hardware cloth as an apron, 24 inches of 1/2 inch hardware cloth as lower portion of the fence, 4 feet of cattle fencing sewn to the lower fencing with wire, and a deer netting top. I live next to a wildlife corridor where I have all manner of creatures waltzing through my yard. I need to protect from everything from minks and weasels up to bears. I thought I was off the hook for big snakes and big cats, but some big cats have been discovered around here in the past couple months. One more thing that wants to eat my birds...

I don't actively trap, though. I have found that I have few problems with the resident animals. The animals that live here try to stay out of my attention. The problems are with animals that are just passing through. I keep game cams going year round, so I get a feel for what is around. The transients are more likely to cause problems for me. Once an animal proves itself to be a problem then the problem is dealt with as I see fit, but I don't try to do any preemptive trapping because I feel it tends to exacerbate the problem.

Sorry for the loss of your bird. It always a bummer to lose one. Your planned set-up sounds pretty secure, so hopefully there won't be a repeat after you get the hot lines run.

Good luck.
 
We have a huge amount of predators around here. Coons and coyote are all over the place so that is why I actively trap during trapping season or when problems occur outside of trapping season. Last year on opening day I set out 30 traps and when I went out to check the traps the next day I caught 10 coons a coyote a possum and a mink. The trapping would all take place on the rest of the property I have in an attempt to keep them from reaching the area that I am securing with electric. I know it is hard to protect your birds when you let them free range I just wanted to get all of your feelings on my plans with the electric fence with a strand every 6 inches up to 5 feet tall.
 

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