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- #21
Awesome! I love the built shelter! We planned on free ranging hence we didn’t build a gigantic covered run, lol then I just got scared!
My neighbors free range all day and have yet to lose a chicken to anything other than there dog years ago. They even have a few bantams and a little serama roo currently…thanks so much for sharing!
Love it! I really like the idea of fencing off a smaller area around the coop and run and covering it with netting. And I think that is the direction we will go in and they can have supervised outings until then!I hope I'm not jinxing myself, but I have had chickens for about 5 years and I've not yet had a loss due to predation. I don't free range, but I do let them out for supervised foraging time, and I have a very large run and covered yard for them.
I have 19 chickens and 5 ducks. Their coop is 8x8, but the attached covered run is ~215 sq ft, and they have access to that 24/7. There's also a 20 sq ft duck house that opens onto the run, but the ducks prefer to sleep in the run. Divas...
The yard is surrounded by electric netting and covered with heavy duty aviary netting. The duck's pond is in there, too. The yard is 650 sq ft. They have access to that until nightfall when I lock them up in the run. We have pretty much every predator you can name here. When I do let them out on the property, I supervise closely to keep them away from the woods.
Now I used to live in a more suburban neighborhood. The only issue we had were hawks. I just made lots of areas for them to hide, but I am MUCH happier with the aviary netting we have now. If I were back in my old neighborhood, I'd probably rig up the netting somehow.
Truth be told, my neighbors free range their flock, and that's helped keep the predators away. Why work for a meal when you can get it easy? It's all about opportunity vs reward.