We have a chicken (she looks like a brown leghorn, only she has a muff and beard as well) who is about 3 or 4 years old. She crows, acts like a rooster, and lays eggs. Anyway she had been missing since Saturday, a few days after several of my six week old pullets were killed.
She showed back up today and I locked her in the run/coop enclosure so that I would know where she was and would not have to worry so much about predators anymore (we have gone back over our coop with hardware cloth and new walls & doors). She has been free-ranging pretty much her entire life and is not taking well to being locked up.
The run is 272 sq. feet and she is currently the only one outside. She is throwing herself against the flight netting trying to get out to go roost in a tree and I am really afraid she is going to injure herself. When it has been dark a little longer my husband and I are going to go out and move her into the coop and lock it up tight. However how do we keep her from hurting herself tomorrow? I really don't want to free-range her right now... something has taken up in her usual roosting spot and she has been hiding in the woods for six days. We have possums, cats, bobcats, raccoons and several rabid animals have been spotted in the neighboring county. What do we do? I've tried feeding her a treat earlier but she was too upset to eat it and pecked at it and tossed aside.
I really don't want her to hurt herself, but being a free-ranger right now doesn't seem plausible either.
She showed back up today and I locked her in the run/coop enclosure so that I would know where she was and would not have to worry so much about predators anymore (we have gone back over our coop with hardware cloth and new walls & doors). She has been free-ranging pretty much her entire life and is not taking well to being locked up.
The run is 272 sq. feet and she is currently the only one outside. She is throwing herself against the flight netting trying to get out to go roost in a tree and I am really afraid she is going to injure herself. When it has been dark a little longer my husband and I are going to go out and move her into the coop and lock it up tight. However how do we keep her from hurting herself tomorrow? I really don't want to free-range her right now... something has taken up in her usual roosting spot and she has been hiding in the woods for six days. We have possums, cats, bobcats, raccoons and several rabid animals have been spotted in the neighboring county. What do we do? I've tried feeding her a treat earlier but she was too upset to eat it and pecked at it and tossed aside.
