I moved the hens to the old goat shed today and the goats to the old hen house because the hens don't need so much space, and the goats need more space!
Well the old goat shed has vents at the top of it, some larger ones, and a few smaller ones but they don't have hardware cloth on them and I wasn't able to get anything up on it today because it got dark too quickly. We haven't had any problems with predators before, but I am concerned so I'm stayin' up! Sitting in the living room, watchin' out the window to make sure nothing like a raccoon comes up to see the chickens.
I've got all the lights that face the coop on, and its in some light, plus the two loudest dogs are staying up tonight. Kitty barks at everything that moves and doesn't move outside. And I'm going outside every half hour-45 minutes to actually check on them, and shining the flashlight out the window every 10 minutes. I know its probably overkill, since my neighbours chickens free range and don't get locked up and they haven't had a fatality in over a year, and the house on the next road's barn is wide open with their chickens roosting on the stanchions.
I'm just paranoid because I saw a raccoon on the road this evening.
SO heres to hoping the chickens make it through the night! I'll be getting the building completely predator proof tomorrow morning, so we only need to make it through TONIGHT.
Well the old goat shed has vents at the top of it, some larger ones, and a few smaller ones but they don't have hardware cloth on them and I wasn't able to get anything up on it today because it got dark too quickly. We haven't had any problems with predators before, but I am concerned so I'm stayin' up! Sitting in the living room, watchin' out the window to make sure nothing like a raccoon comes up to see the chickens.
I've got all the lights that face the coop on, and its in some light, plus the two loudest dogs are staying up tonight. Kitty barks at everything that moves and doesn't move outside. And I'm going outside every half hour-45 minutes to actually check on them, and shining the flashlight out the window every 10 minutes. I know its probably overkill, since my neighbours chickens free range and don't get locked up and they haven't had a fatality in over a year, and the house on the next road's barn is wide open with their chickens roosting on the stanchions.
I'm just paranoid because I saw a raccoon on the road this evening.