NE Florida-New Predators

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Deborah Biggs

Deborah Biggs

Chirping
7 Years
Sep 23, 2017
3
18
77
Hi there! While I am not a new member, I thought I would post this here.

I live in Florida and have had chickens for about 10 years. Because of all the new construction in the area, the wildlife has been run out of their habitat and are taking up residence elsewhere. Because it is baby season with teh fox, coyote and raptors, I lost 17 chickens in less than 3 weeks. Nothing like this has happened in 4 years. Needless to say, we are heartbroken--not to mention my egg clients have to go elsewhere to get eggs.

Our chickens have free range during teh day and are closed up at night. I have an automatic closure so the coop door opens and closes automatically based on sunrise and sunset. Next year, I will have to keep the chickens confined, as I can't go through this again and I fear it will only get worse from our area's growth. My husband and I will be adding an additional "run" to our coop so they will have plenty of safe space.

Thank you, BYC, for years of articles and information!

Deborah
 
Hello, Deborah, and a very belated welcome to BYC! :frow Nice to meet you.
I confine my flock behind poultry netting powered with a 10,000 volt charger to contain them in a 1/3 acre area. It works very well to protect against ground predators. Good cover and alert roosters have so far been effective to prevent aerial losses.
 
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Hello! I notice that you joined a while back, so thank you for making your first post here in the site, and thank you for that info. Yes, people don't realize that sometimes when new housing area's are developed that it could disrupt the wildlife habitat, and cause them to have to relocate, or even stay and bother people that move in. This also happens when forest and brush fires happen. Those animals that make it out of there have to go to another area to find food sources.
 

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