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I've read a lot on the Predators sub-forum and its not that I don't worry about predators but feel safer than most. I live in the city in a newer subdivision that is close to downtown (redeveloped area that used to be a Catholic convent and boarding school). We just don't have a lot of the usual predators around here. I've seen the occasional opossum but no raccoons. My back fence is a 7' high brick/stone wall. The neighbors each put up wood privacy fences and in the front we put up wrought-iron style fencing, 5' high with 4" spacing between bars. Before we let the chooks out to free-range, we reinforced the front fencing by putting 4' poultry netting on the inside of the bars. This was to keep the still small chicks in and keep potential predators out.
I am actually more concerned about domestic dogs and cats than wild animals. My own two dogs killed one of our cats 7 months after we got them so I don't trust them with the chooks at all. Luckily they are wusses who don't like the great outdoors much. We no longer let them out unaccompanied and that seems to work just fine. They go out, we stand on the deck to watch them, they do their thing and then we all go in again. Our cat is also Mr. Hunter - he has brought in rabbits before. He's a 22lb cat and I think has it in him to kill the chooks if he wants to - and I'm sure he does. So the routine now is that he only goes out at night. This seems to work for him since cats are essentially nocturnal anyway. Once the coop has been shut up for the night, he goes out to do his rounds, spends the night in the house and then goes out again in the morning before we open the coop. Surprisingly, he seems happy enough with this arrangement and has not made a fuss about not being allowed out at other times (he used to be a purely indoor cat until about a year ago and when he did start going out, has limited himself to our backyard anyway). Having him actually seems to be an advantage. Since his territory seems to coincide with our fences, we NEVER see other cats in our yard so in essence, he is protecting our chooks from neighborhood cats even though he would like them himself!
I worry a little about hawks but we do have a good-sized deck for them to shelter under and I'm hoping that the shadow of a hawk would send them scurrying for cover.
