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It's absolutley possible. I would say that a well thought out and constructed pen made of solid materials or properly electrified will prevent most predation problems. Even a bear can be successfully excluded with electric most of the time. The real problem is that when designing and building pens, most don't go to the same lengths predator proofing that a predator will go to to get dinner. It's much like baby-proofing, you won't solve your problems until you think like the predator you are trying to exclude. You really are not even aiming for "predator proofing", what you want to to do is make it a big pain and a lot of work for the animal to get into your pen to the point where it will not be worth the energy expense for the predator to break into your pen, Then it will go to your neighbors yard where they don't lock up the chickens or didn't bury wire or whatever it is they didn't do to make it difficult to break into thier pen. just about every night racoons dance on my henhouse, but they can't get in, so they go to my neighbors and pull thier chickens through the too large wire or out of the trees they roost in. Really if chickens are not locked up in a good sturdy pen, it's like leaving a buffet out and complaining when it gets eaten. Also, trapping is a slippery slope in which the symptom is being treated but not the disease.
I work for several bird farms where predators are trapped during trapping season most of the rest of the year they have no problems at all, trapping works well to control a population not individual animals when an individual animal is trapped and then trapping is stopped most of the time a symptom is fixed not the problem animals travel in groups sometimes litter mates sometimes mates and young sometimes unrelated groups travel together it is easier to kill baby prey when they are in a large group. I watched a young mama whitetail trying to defend her fawn , I am not sure how the bobcats were related but the 4 of them killed the mother and the fawn . Of the Bobcats I caught that season I am pretty sure the big one of that group I caught a 48# tom .
It's absolutley possible. I would say that a well thought out and constructed pen made of solid materials or properly electrified will prevent most predation problems. Even a bear can be successfully excluded with electric most of the time. The real problem is that when designing and building pens, most don't go to the same lengths predator proofing that a predator will go to to get dinner. It's much like baby-proofing, you won't solve your problems until you think like the predator you are trying to exclude. You really are not even aiming for "predator proofing", what you want to to do is make it a big pain and a lot of work for the animal to get into your pen to the point where it will not be worth the energy expense for the predator to break into your pen, Then it will go to your neighbors yard where they don't lock up the chickens or didn't bury wire or whatever it is they didn't do to make it difficult to break into thier pen. just about every night racoons dance on my henhouse, but they can't get in, so they go to my neighbors and pull thier chickens through the too large wire or out of the trees they roost in. Really if chickens are not locked up in a good sturdy pen, it's like leaving a buffet out and complaining when it gets eaten. Also, trapping is a slippery slope in which the symptom is being treated but not the disease.
I work for several bird farms where predators are trapped during trapping season most of the rest of the year they have no problems at all, trapping works well to control a population not individual animals when an individual animal is trapped and then trapping is stopped most of the time a symptom is fixed not the problem animals travel in groups sometimes litter mates sometimes mates and young sometimes unrelated groups travel together it is easier to kill baby prey when they are in a large group. I watched a young mama whitetail trying to defend her fawn , I am not sure how the bobcats were related but the 4 of them killed the mother and the fawn . Of the Bobcats I caught that season I am pretty sure the big one of that group I caught a 48# tom .
