New member, new to chickens! (Delaware)

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:welcome so glad you have joined us.

We also have too many predators, so mine live in confinement and are quite happy. I did add a fair size partially protected "play land" so they can pretend to "free range".

I would have some concerns about optimum predator proofing a tractor, but many have been successful with those.

Snakes - only 1/2 inch hardware cloth will work. Aprons vs diggers that are moveable would worry me - but I'm a nervous chicken mom :)

The all-in-one coop/run like the Wichita Cabin coop is what I built, but it didn't given them enough space for full time confinement, so we more than doubled the area which solved the problem.

Folks who free range have to accept losses, but for me even one loss would be devastating.

Confining your dogs is a must, many have lost their flocks to their own other pets :(
 
I’ve trained my dog to behave around my chickens but it does take time and patience to achieve this, I know lots of us have but you know your own dogs and whether they’ll train or not I guesss.
Regarding freeranging versus cooping up...I’m pragmatic about it...I’d rather take the risk and freerange..if they died dancing in the rain rather than spent a life confined in a cage..I would be sad but philosophical. There’s a happy medium perhaps for some between the two ..keeping them safe/quality of life but I think we’d all agree it’s more natural for them to wander around...and for me I wouldn’t have them if I couldn’t let them wander around and didn’t have them until I could do this safely ❤️
 

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