Question about Predators

[llombardo]

if a predator is trying to get to chickens, specifically at night, do the chickens acknowledge there is a predator? Do they make noise or are they caught completely off guard and there isn't any kind of commotion?

 

[RWise]

For me most of the time they make noise which wakes my dog which wakes me and the shotgun. I am a light sleeper, and the birds can wake me.
However I have found a snake under a broody with chicks and all was calm until I killed the snake.
My coop is just outside my bedroom window, so I can hear things that go bump in the night.

 

[centrarchid]

Chickens that can see threat make a lot of noise even as predator approaches. I also have dogs and used to keep a pen just outside the bedroom window. Currently, a heat heat lamp is working in my barn making so birds can see everything. They can actively evade something like a half grown Opossum. At first the chickens got upset causing dogs to come in but now the chickens make very little noise as they step out of the Opossum's reach. A Great-horned Owl that also comes in every night to spend an hour or more inside barn with more that 50 chickens has been acclimated to except then owl flies. If light were to go off then chickens would loose ability to see but in most instances still be able to give alarm when neighbor is being attacked.

I have many recollections of attacks, some when I am camped out trying to get predator causing trouble. Predators like Bobcat and Coyote can make very quick kills. Great-horned Owl can be very quick too.