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yarnchick

yarnchick

Chirping
6 Years
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Jul 19, 2013
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I have snooped around for a week and today decided to join. After having a bear siteing within a quarter mile of me and my new chickens I decided to seek advice. Google sent me here. My husband of 35 yrs and I received 4 black sex links for our anniversary June 2 last month. We fondly call them the Link en Sisters. We are not new to chickens but this is our first. Next door neighbors had free range (we approved) hens for 3 yrs. Our goat loved them. They sold so Gertie got hens. A week later we bought a Maren-Rhode Island Red and 1 rooster and 1 hen in Brown Leghorns. They are all March chicks so we expect eggs in about 4-5 weeks. Maybe August. I built them a coop attached to the goat house. They share the lot. We are putting in a taller fence.
We live in the country and our critters have their house and yard in the woods. Quit shaded next to a ditch. We now let the chickens out and they love the ditch. Our tick population has dropped. They also pick in the woods.
I have a yarn shoppe next to our home and the customers love to come out and see what we have new. We also have 3 cats, 2 cockatiels, 1 Redtail African Grey and I have a Sulfer Crested Cockatoo in the store. Our 2 big birds have outside cages for good weather. A lady came screaming to store this afternoon yell to get the birds put up. A bear ran in front of her just up the road. Oh my another worry. I do love this site the best of any chicken site I have been on. Thanks for being here.
In KY
 
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I think their thick fur insulates bears from electric fencing UNLESS it's their muzzle that touches the wire. Some people spread bacon grease on a piece of aluminum foil and attach to the fence so the bear does come in contact with the electric wires.
 
We have had chickens in "bear country" in the NC mountains for 15 years and have found that black bears here are typically more interested in poultry food than in the poultry themselves. So if you can secure your food, that would eliminate some temptation.

Several years back a bear with a "taste for chicken" came through our area. It tore up a neighbor's coop and tried to get into ours. But that was an exception. If a bear wants to get into something, there's not much you can do to stop it. But I would recommend concentrating any protective measures on your overnight structure, where it can help with other predators as well.

That said, it is also true that large predator behavior concerning domestic poultry tends to be learned and local! We had free-ranging chickens down in rural GA, where the coyote population was very dense, and never had any coyote predation. But up here in rural NC the coyotes began raiding our chickens in broad daylight, to the point that we had to build a fence.

So if you hear about a bear killing poultry in your area, you can ignore my reassurances above ...
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I to live in bear country and every spring have a huge bear wreck my bird feeders. I stop leaving bird food out and when it realizes there is no food around it stops coming around. This spring I saw foot prints next to my coop but it didn't bother the chickens I'm sure if it wanted to it could break in the door to my coop but then again it could break into my house also. My dogs also help deter bears. I have a video of the bear but can't figure how to upload. Anyway he is eating sunflowers off my deck and there is a frisbee next to his foot and his foot is bigger than the frisbee.
 
Thanks for all encouragement. We have chickens up in coop at night. Loose in large lot with goat during day. They free range for about 3-4 hours in evening or she ever we are able to monitor. We have cyotes here also. Goat helps keep some things at bay. No grain is available. All closed up. Goat and chickens live in duplex. They use same lot. I was feeding the other hot evening and found goat,five chickens and a coiled up black snake in goat house. I hate snakes so had my husband remove it. Next day it was crawling in lot. Chickens removed it.:-) I do not want copperheads so will have to live with that. We hope the bear is young and trying to establish a territory. If he is hungry we cant do to much about it. We just keep all food stuff sealed up.
 

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