Newbie - excited but a bit worried, I want to do right by them!

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Welcome belatedly your situation sounds very similar to mine with the woods encroaching and lots of hungry critters looking for a easy meal. For a mobile coop and run a small electric fence charger is a real help since you won't be able to provide a good anti dig set up. you can even get some that run of D cell bateries so you won't need a extension cord like I use. Two strands one just high enough the grass won't be on it and the other 12 to 16 inches above that worked to keep my littles safe before I got a big coop for em.

Edit to add that if the run is not covered some anti bird netting like used in orchards over it will stop the coopers which are the bane of my existence right now.
 
jsr5 said:
Welcome belatedly your situation sounds very similar to mine with the woods encroaching and lots of hungry critters looking for a easy meal. For a mobile coop and run a small electric fence charger is a real help since you won't be able to provide a good anti dig set up. you can even get some that run of D cell bateries so you won't need a extension cord like I use. Two strands one just high enough the grass won't be on it and the other 12 to 16 inches above that worked to keep my littles safe before I got a big coop for em.

Edit to add that if the run is not covered some anti bird netting like used in orchards over it will stop the coopers which are the bane of my existence right now.
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Thank you @jsr5! I just finished reading an article here about electric fencing https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/a-treatise-on-electric-fences-for-poultry.72229/ and am trying to decide between the two lines method and poultry netting. I can see these Buckeyes really want to explore and roam around, though at this stage (9 weeks old) they do a little with me there and then quickly scramble back to the coop tractor. The tractor does have a welded wire skirt, it sticks out about 10 inches. Makes it hard to pull around in taller grass. Some people stake the skirt down but I haven't yet as I'm moving it every day or so. Not a real anti-dig setup though but better than nothing. When I stop moving it for the winter I'll secure it to the ground better.

Yes, I was thinking of the tractor coop being at the center of a moveable electric fence around it, and using it to help prop up some sort of aviary netting, maybe with a pole secured by the coop tractor. Then leave it like that for a few days. Cooper hawks are big here too - until this year we had a nesting pair very close to us, they would cruise our skies over the house every day!

What about fishers and smaller weasels with the two line electric fence method? Seems the bottom line might not be low enough deter those guys. Could they jump over it, but under the higher line? And do your chickens respect that fence?

Thank you for all your suggestions!
 

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