Just a quick story-
I've had chickens for a year with minimal problems. We built our coop like Fort Knox. It is similar in design to the "Wichita Cabin Coop" with the attached run. I've never worried about a breach into the coop despite the fact that we back up to a wooded area that extends at least a mile to our north. We know it is full of raccoons, foxes, possums, deer, etc.
We've never let our chickens free range as our yard wasn't fenced and we share a common-ish backyard area with 4-5 neighbors who all have big dogs who occasionally get loose.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago when we *finally* put up a 6 foot privacy fence so the chickens can spend some time in the yard and we could plant a vegetable garden. Long overdue. A few hours of supervised free ranging had slowly progressed to several hours of unsupervised free ranging with a window open to listen for problems. Always during daylight, they were always back in the coop well before dusk.
Today (Sunday afternoon) I ran an errand while my husband was home working on a project. Chickens out. Window open. I had been gone about an hour when he felt an urge to go check on the chickens. He goes outside and several neighbors are congregated at our fence line and there is some commotion. I got home about this time. Long story short, the neighbors dogs had gotten out and raised hell over 2 raccoons who were checking out our chickens from a tree on the other side of the fence line.
Chickens got put up. One coon escaped, the other was dispatched via my neighbor and an air rifle (middle of the city, our 10/22 is too much).
Lessons learned: They may be "most" active at night but it isn't exclusive. Unsupervised free range is no longer an option. Also, our neighbors are awesome
I guess my point is-don't be complacent. We're in a very, very difficult area in terms of predators but we're also within city limits. I was surprised it only took a matter of weeks for the raccoons to figure it out. I'm sure the survivor will be back tonight with all of it's buddies!
I've had chickens for a year with minimal problems. We built our coop like Fort Knox. It is similar in design to the "Wichita Cabin Coop" with the attached run. I've never worried about a breach into the coop despite the fact that we back up to a wooded area that extends at least a mile to our north. We know it is full of raccoons, foxes, possums, deer, etc.
We've never let our chickens free range as our yard wasn't fenced and we share a common-ish backyard area with 4-5 neighbors who all have big dogs who occasionally get loose.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago when we *finally* put up a 6 foot privacy fence so the chickens can spend some time in the yard and we could plant a vegetable garden. Long overdue. A few hours of supervised free ranging had slowly progressed to several hours of unsupervised free ranging with a window open to listen for problems. Always during daylight, they were always back in the coop well before dusk.
Today (Sunday afternoon) I ran an errand while my husband was home working on a project. Chickens out. Window open. I had been gone about an hour when he felt an urge to go check on the chickens. He goes outside and several neighbors are congregated at our fence line and there is some commotion. I got home about this time. Long story short, the neighbors dogs had gotten out and raised hell over 2 raccoons who were checking out our chickens from a tree on the other side of the fence line.
Chickens got put up. One coon escaped, the other was dispatched via my neighbor and an air rifle (middle of the city, our 10/22 is too much).
Lessons learned: They may be "most" active at night but it isn't exclusive. Unsupervised free range is no longer an option. Also, our neighbors are awesome
I guess my point is-don't be complacent. We're in a very, very difficult area in terms of predators but we're also within city limits. I was surprised it only took a matter of weeks for the raccoons to figure it out. I'm sure the survivor will be back tonight with all of it's buddies!
