Thank you for what you said about Ginger. And again I hope what I said helps. Ginger was quite the chicken! My precious little girl, it was awful to lose her, and worse to not be able to put her to rest. We walk a line with our flock between livestock and pets though many of them are much more pets than livestock. We call them our lifers. The ones that will live out their natural lives here unless they begin to suffer. They're pets and friends. When the flock is out we can't go out in the porch without birds running to meet us. It's a wonderful experience! The losses have been heart breaking. Over 16 birds since May. That is one thing I will say is almost everything wants to eat chicken. If you really want your flock safe they will need a fenced covered run and even then the predators will try. We made the decision to let ours free range and we didn't have problems for a year. Now we do. Our flock is used to free ranging and I feel it would be unfair to pen them all now. We should have 40 birds by this fall(we're over that now growing out spare cockerals to go to freezer camp) and the amount of space we would need to fence for the health of our yard and our flock would be insane. We can't afford it and we want them to be the strongest they can be. I won't deny that I have my days where I consider fencing all of my lifers up in a big run to protect them but I know they're happier out. We do however have a new coop we're moving from a relatives property that has a good sized coop and a nice sized run attached. Hmmm but no I could do it until the predators are take care of or move on but our current coop has a concrete floor and I know what a blessing that is. I don't have to worry about predators digging under that walls when my babies are safely tucked in bed for the night. I know that's a blessing. If this new coop were to be placed on concrete with just the run over grass that would be wonderful and much safer but well think of something.
I'll put it this way. We started last year by ordering 5 buff Orpingtons. We built a run in a building on the property and began a permanent coop. The weather turned cold and we turned a two room milk house into a coop(our "cooler coop" as it was previously used to ready show steers for the fair). It was much larger than we needed and well insulated. Jackpot! Now the farm may tear down the building we are currently using so work continues on the original coop we started but we're repurposing as much as we can for it and it's slow going. Plus DH2B (dear hubbby to be) is a perfectionist and wouldn't you know it we decided in all our grandeur to build it too look just like a miniature version of a full size barn. It's going to be awesome if it ever gets finished. Yikes! I'm just hoping we get to keep our cooler coop and the other coops and runs when moved, repaired and finished will be able to be used as grow outs, quarantines and breeding pens.
Who knows what the rest of this year and into next year will bring.
