I got 8 hens about 3 months ago. Mix of breeds including an Easter Egger, Speckled Sussex, 2 that appear to be Buff Orphington, 2 Golden Lace Wyandotte, a Silver Lace Wyandotte, and a Barred Rock. I was told they are 3 years old and the owner wanted to start again with chicks. My main purpose for getting them is to control the tick population on my 4 acre farm. My property has a lot of road frontage, is not very deep and has roughly 20-30 acres of woods behind me. My chicken coop is by my horse barn, at the edge of the woods. They were doing a great job with reducing the amount of ticks while free ranging during the day. They went into their coop/run at night. Some are still laying and that was a nice perk.
Last Tuesday, when I came home from work and was doing my barn chores, I noticed a pile of feathers. I got a sick feeling in my stomach and saw only 5 chickens wandering about. The feathers were from my EE and there were a few piles of them, the poor thing put up a good fight. I did find her body in the woods missing her head and neck. I also found two spots with a small number of feathers that were back and white. My Silver Lace and Barred Rock were missing too. I never found any other signs of them. For the next few days, I only let the hens out when I was outside and there were no problems, other then they were not happy when they were in the rest of the time. On Monday, I left them out all day and there was no problem. Yesterday (Tuesday), I let them out while doing my barn chores, came into the house for two hours, then went out to put them in the coop/run. They were nowhere to be found. While searching for them, I came upon a pile of Golden Lace feathers. Later on, three came back. I was missing a Golden Lace and a Buff. The Golden Lace that returned was missing feathers so she had been lucky enough to escape the predator. Now I am down to 3 hens.
I am not sure what killed them. Possibly a fox. Upon closely inspecting the area where the feathers were yesterday, I did see a paw print that could have been a fox. Yesterdays attack happened between 9-11am. The previous attack was during the day also.
I certainly don't want them to die, but they are not happy when contained either. I guess I will only let them out when I am outside, but even then I can't keep a constant eye on them. And they won't be able to forage nearly as much, which defeats the purpose of why I have them.
I have read on here that some breeds are more "predator aware" then the breeds I have/had. I read that Game Bird chickens are good at defending themselves and evading predators. I saw that the Austorlorpe are listed as "predator aware" and are friendly also. I love that mine are friendly, especially the Speckled Sussex.
Advice on keeping my birds safe while free ranging is appreciated as well as advice on birds that have a better chance of survival. I can't fence my whole property in to keep all predators out, So far, advice I have read on other posts will not work in my case and keeping the birds cooped all the time defeats the reason why I got them. I would be open to learning about other birds that are predator resistant that eat ticks if there are any. I did try Guinea Fowl a few years ago and most were killed in the road by cars.
Last Tuesday, when I came home from work and was doing my barn chores, I noticed a pile of feathers. I got a sick feeling in my stomach and saw only 5 chickens wandering about. The feathers were from my EE and there were a few piles of them, the poor thing put up a good fight. I did find her body in the woods missing her head and neck. I also found two spots with a small number of feathers that were back and white. My Silver Lace and Barred Rock were missing too. I never found any other signs of them. For the next few days, I only let the hens out when I was outside and there were no problems, other then they were not happy when they were in the rest of the time. On Monday, I left them out all day and there was no problem. Yesterday (Tuesday), I let them out while doing my barn chores, came into the house for two hours, then went out to put them in the coop/run. They were nowhere to be found. While searching for them, I came upon a pile of Golden Lace feathers. Later on, three came back. I was missing a Golden Lace and a Buff. The Golden Lace that returned was missing feathers so she had been lucky enough to escape the predator. Now I am down to 3 hens.
I am not sure what killed them. Possibly a fox. Upon closely inspecting the area where the feathers were yesterday, I did see a paw print that could have been a fox. Yesterdays attack happened between 9-11am. The previous attack was during the day also.
I certainly don't want them to die, but they are not happy when contained either. I guess I will only let them out when I am outside, but even then I can't keep a constant eye on them. And they won't be able to forage nearly as much, which defeats the purpose of why I have them.
I have read on here that some breeds are more "predator aware" then the breeds I have/had. I read that Game Bird chickens are good at defending themselves and evading predators. I saw that the Austorlorpe are listed as "predator aware" and are friendly also. I love that mine are friendly, especially the Speckled Sussex.
Advice on keeping my birds safe while free ranging is appreciated as well as advice on birds that have a better chance of survival. I can't fence my whole property in to keep all predators out, So far, advice I have read on other posts will not work in my case and keeping the birds cooped all the time defeats the reason why I got them. I would be open to learning about other birds that are predator resistant that eat ticks if there are any. I did try Guinea Fowl a few years ago and most were killed in the road by cars.
