- Thread starter
- #11
NJpineyflock
Hatching
- Feb 27, 2020
- 9
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I think this is very sound advice, I understand that if I am gonna keep livestock I need to protect it even if it means doing things I don’t want to do. My main coop is actually very secure, I haven’t had a problem in my main coop. The adult that the fox got was during the day while my guineas were free ranging. As of now my guineas do have a large run attached to their coop but keeping them in it all the time would be counter productive as I’ve started raising them to eat ticks something that is a massive problem here in the northeast and before I had my guineas my property was more infested then I’ve ever seen anywhere in my life. An electric fence wouldn’t work either cause guineas roam a whole lot and they fly well so no fence electric or otherwise would contain them so the fox could just wait until they leave that perimeter. My chickens will never be a problem as I only have 8 and they sleep in a secure coop with a large covered ru which only about 20 feet from my back porch and they have a large fenced in yard about 1 acre that they forage in during the day, as I’ve said they only problem I’ve had with them is hawk attacks. Thanks to everyone for your advice and personal stories!You are your birds' safe keeper. Their protector. You say the diameter on the pen was 1 inch by 2 inches. Predators such as raccoons and coyotes can pull a bird through chicken wire holes, which are a lot smaller than 1x2 inches. You would have to have hardware cloth, at least 1/2 inch.
You are an animal lover and don't like to kill them. Well, me too - but as stated above, I am my chicken's protector. If I put them out in a situation where they can be killed because I am unwilling to kill the thing that's after them - or upgrade their protective environment so that predator can't get to them, then I am failing them. If you keep chickens - or any livestock for that matter - you must love them more than you love the predator. And that means killing the predator if you can't protect the livestock adequately.
So there's your two choices: Upgrade your enclosure so a predator can't get in, or kill the predator.