Official BYC Poll: How Do You Protect Your Chickens From Predators?

[GigitheBackyardHerbilist]

I shut

Predators are one of the greatest fears a chicken farmer has. They can be cunning, fast, and very sneaky. Your chickens will be drawing in predators from the next county over! Well, maybe not that far, however somewhere back in these predators' ancient memories they have eaten wild chickens at some point and will come snooping around for a meal day and night. So keeping them safe from predators should be on every chicken keeper's top priority list.

How Do You Protect Your Chickens From Predators? Place your votes above (you may select more than one)

Feel free to share any other ways you keep your chickens safe in the comments section below.

View attachment 2517029

Further Reading:

Top 10 Chicken Predators
A Checklist To Avoiding Casualties In The Flock
Predators & Pests

(Check out more exciting Official BYC Polls HERE!)

I shot my first raccoon yesterday. It was out in the daylight, early afternoon. It was less than a week after it killed one of my lavender orphingtons. We, my grandson and myself were in my chicken run putting flannel on my perches getting ready for winter.
My son came out and said Mom come here. He knew I was busy, I figured it was important. There was a raccoon at his back door, it ran to under our canoe, then under our RV then to my Chicken run under the grapevines.
He went after it with a pitchfork. It went under the coop.It still persisted and kept trying to get into my coop and run unafraid.
My son chased it with a pitchfork out from under my chicken coop. . Finally he thought he chased it off.
My son had to leave, so he brought me his gun, just in case.
Within 5 minutes after he left, the raccoon was trying to get into my chicken run. I shot it. Just then my husband came home early, thank God and ran out with his gun and finished the job. It didn't look rabid, or was tenacious though.

 

[MamaWolf7]

I have a clothes line wire zig zaging above the chickens run to deter aerial attacks from bald eagles.

 

[Nodakj]

Well here goes. I use hardware cloth on my coop windows and under my raised coop. part of my run has welded wire 3x6 (which will be mobile next year) and will be covered shortly with plastic. The rest of my run is hardware cloth. I have a hardware cloth apron about 18" out from the coop and run that has the hardware cloth and the welded wire comes out about a foot. the apron is anchored in around the entire perimeter with about 250 eight-inch landscaping staples. All the doors have either double hasps or double hooks or a combination of either. I have an automatic solar/electric pop door. i have motion detection solar powered lights front and back. i have a motion detection red light and alarm in the back. I have 2 "night eyes" solar powered night lights. I have 5 big dogs and various amounts of firepower at my disposal. the only things i cannot cover is mink or bears. everything else i think we are ok from.

 

[Anime2lover]

Predators are one of the greatest fears a chicken farmer has. They can be cunning, fast, and very sneaky. Your chickens will be drawing in predators from the next county over! Well, maybe not that far, however somewhere back in these predators' ancient memories they have eaten wild chickens at some point and will come snooping around for a meal day and night. So keeping them safe from predators should be on every chicken keeper's top priority list.

How Do You Protect Your Chickens From Predators? Place your votes above (you may select more than one)

Feel free to share any other ways you keep your chickens safe in the comments section below.

View attachment 2517029

Further Reading:

Top 10 Chicken Predators
A Checklist To Avoiding Casualties In The Flock
Predators & Pests

(Check out more exciting Official BYC Polls HERE!)

We have a bunch of dogs that would gladly alert us to a fox or coyote in our yard, we have an Owl decoy to hopefully fend off aerial predators.

 

[user605178]

Predators are one of the greatest fears a chicken farmer has. They can be cunning, fast, and very sneaky. Your chickens will be drawing in predators from the next county over! Well, maybe not that far, however somewhere back in these predators' ancient memories they have eaten wild chickens at some point and will come snooping around for a meal day and night. So keeping them safe from predators should be on every chicken keeper's top priority list.

How Do You Protect Your Chickens From Predators? Place your votes above (you may select more than one)

Feel free to share any other ways you keep your chickens safe in the comments section below.

View attachment 2517029

Further Reading:

Top 10 Chicken Predators
A Checklist To Avoiding Casualties In The Flock
Predators & Pests

(Check out more exciting Official BYC Polls HERE!)

The best protection of all is to raise a farm dog from the time it's a pup in the coop with your grown flock so it comes to think of your flock as it's own when it comes of age it will protect its flock ..introducing it to the flock may take a little patience but once you have succeeded it will be worth the effort

 

[horsegirlll]

Predators are one of the greatest fears a chicken farmer has. They can be cunning, fast, and very sneaky. Your chickens will be drawing in predators from the next county over! Well, maybe not that far, however somewhere back in these predators' ancient memories they have eaten wild chickens at some point and will come snooping around for a meal day and night. So keeping them safe from predators should be on every chicken keeper's top priority list.

How Do You Protect Your Chickens From Predators? Place your votes above (you may select more than one)

Feel free to share any other ways you keep your chickens safe in the comments section below.

View attachment 2517029

Further Reading:

Top 10 Chicken Predators
A Checklist To Avoiding Casualties In The Flock
Predators & Pests

(Check out more exciting Official BYC Polls HERE!)

I have a rooster and a motion activated light, as well as 2 dogs (but quite frankly i can’t rely on them as one is old and they both sleep up st the house and probably wouldn’t wake to a predator). my chicken house is an old wooden childs playhouse so it has flooring already. we also have a tree next to the coop and a shade sail just over the food and water area. we used to have our own makeshift locks on the gates but they fell off, we do have a bolt on the main door though. we have 2 types of fencing, as the second area was originally designed for goats, but it was too small. they both have chicken wire running along it, stapled into the wood and with nails in the ground. when we have small gaps i use a wooden plank to block it off.

 

[centrarchid]

I employ what is called integrated pest management (IPM) which involves a lot surveillance with a range of anti-predator approaches that are often applied only when predators are an issue. This approach allows me to spread chicken impacts over more acreage even in a location where predator activity with relatively high. Additionally, I have so not all my chickens, especially the high value brood fowl, are in the more exposed settings.

I have a perimeter fence encompassing about 8.5 acres that excludes most dogs and provides structure that complicates access by foxes and coyotes. Within that fenced in area I have at least two dogs running about to tangle with anyone that comes within fence. Additional dogs in pens provide moral support to the free-ranging dogs.

The habitat is managed for the free-ranging chickens to provide cover, foraging locations and feeding stations that keep them from being interested in going beyond the perimeter fencing. The cover obstructs daytime raptors.

A couple free-range fully adult free-range roosters entertain raptors that choose to go after free-range juvenile chickens. Anything that gives the raptors pause gives the dogs more time to get there.

My chicken pens, which there are several of, make so breaking into one does not mean everything is lost. The pens are tough enough to slow even a black bear and the dogs can make challenging the pens pretty much impossible. I have yet to have bear problems even though we have at least one in the area now.

I also have pastures within the perimeter fence that also slow predators down but not my dogs that know how to negotiate the fences very well.


I also have the ability to setup electrified poultry netting although that is now more to contain juvenile to subadult American Dominiques.

 

[Scots in France]

Our Flock free ranges during the day, all of the coops are secure with perimeter fencing and locked doors.
We have about a dozen roosters and about 3 dozen hens.
We have occasional losses due to foxes, pine martens, hawks will take chicks if they can and the last hen was eaten by a stray hunt dog!
Whenever we have a loss to a mammal, I borrow the neighbours dog and walk the perimeter so he can "mark his territory"! I also ask the menfolk to pee in the trees around the coops.
When a hawk takes a chick, for the next couple of days I will keep them locked up for an hour or two past the time of the attack... And spend more time in the garden...
Nature can be cruel and the predators need to eat / feed their families too...
Definitely one of the downsides to keeping chickens!
The smart / fast chickens live to see another day... That's how evolution works...

 

[MiddleAmerican]

I trapped over 50 coons/opossums/skunks on our 20 acres over the winter.

 

[Claire65]

Included with the other stuff, we have a baby cam. None of our chickens/roos like the coop. The hens will lay their eggs there but that is all. The amt of money we spent building the coop from you know where ... they snub their nose is well now it's not relevant. We have a ladder roost and all of them sit on the very top winter, spring, etc. Our roos currently take turns at night watching over the brood.