Thank you Backyard Chicken Community

[drumstick diva]

Welcome to Backyard chickens.

 

[drumstick diva]

Eggstra unfortunately the down side of free ranging is the periodic loss to predators. If the loss is too great you may want to consider building a large, secure run for them with cover to better protect them from the coyotes, fox, raccoon, skunks and raptors as well.

 

[PerryCoChick]

You seem to have a lovely flock. For the safety of my own chickens how did the coyote get in. We have foxes on our property and our coop is pretty strong but we do have them out of the coop for most of the day is this all ok.

The coops (yes, we are addicted) are all very safe. We have free ranged the chickens since shortly after the first arrived in May 2013. We have never had a predator in the Coops. However, this year -our third summer- free ranging has come to a halt. We lost two girls and two 16 week pullets a momma had hatched then Jerk in 2 days. Because the pullets and Jerk went missing in a 20-minute period we decided something was coming for free meals. Working on a large pasture with 6 foot fences. We live on 18 acres which 20 years ago was a nursery and Christmas tree farm.