- May 6, 2011
- 14
- 1
- 22
Howdy,
I live a mile from pavement ( oh, boy ! ) 10 miles out of Marysville ( which is 5 miles north of Everett ). Live on 5 wooded acres and, over the past 25 years, have learned a LOT about predator-proofing my flocks. I have game camera pics of coyotes, feral dogs and racoons stalking, entering our pens and even dragging some of our hens out to eat them. Arrrggg. We have actually witnessed eagles, owls and red tail hawks grabbing our chickens.
... so..... barnyard now has some anti-dig protection (buried fencing), a NINE-FOOT high fence (100 ft. perimiter) with a VERY hot wire up about 7 feet. To discourage birds of prey I strung a 4-foot grid of heavy white nylon twine up at the 9-foot level above the barnyard. Then I tied a 1-foot orange tape flag at each junction of the twine. This makes the birds of prey say ... " gee.... I'm not sure I can fly through that stuff ". Have not lost a chicken/duck/goose since I did that (8 months ago).
I'm currently building a 4' x 12' duplex hen house with each half of the duplex having a 6' x 12' enclosed pen for smaller chickens. Have a goose pen with little pool and nice lock-down shelter for nights. Ducks have their own pen-within-a-pen (for night lock-down) and a larger pool. Have two hen houses within my little 12' x 12' chicken barn along with 2 brooders and a wall-mounted cage for pigeons (with their own outside entrance and landing pad). But, alas, our coolest pet pigeon must have met up with an eagle so we're looking for a few more pigeon chicks. Nothing fancy, just plain-old pigeons.
Geez... guess that's a bit much on the information. Suffice it to say, we love our birds around here. Oh, also feed lots of wild birds and are a registered Backyard Wildlife Santuary.
Rusted One
I live a mile from pavement ( oh, boy ! ) 10 miles out of Marysville ( which is 5 miles north of Everett ). Live on 5 wooded acres and, over the past 25 years, have learned a LOT about predator-proofing my flocks. I have game camera pics of coyotes, feral dogs and racoons stalking, entering our pens and even dragging some of our hens out to eat them. Arrrggg. We have actually witnessed eagles, owls and red tail hawks grabbing our chickens.
... so..... barnyard now has some anti-dig protection (buried fencing), a NINE-FOOT high fence (100 ft. perimiter) with a VERY hot wire up about 7 feet. To discourage birds of prey I strung a 4-foot grid of heavy white nylon twine up at the 9-foot level above the barnyard. Then I tied a 1-foot orange tape flag at each junction of the twine. This makes the birds of prey say ... " gee.... I'm not sure I can fly through that stuff ". Have not lost a chicken/duck/goose since I did that (8 months ago).
I'm currently building a 4' x 12' duplex hen house with each half of the duplex having a 6' x 12' enclosed pen for smaller chickens. Have a goose pen with little pool and nice lock-down shelter for nights. Ducks have their own pen-within-a-pen (for night lock-down) and a larger pool. Have two hen houses within my little 12' x 12' chicken barn along with 2 brooders and a wall-mounted cage for pigeons (with their own outside entrance and landing pad). But, alas, our coolest pet pigeon must have met up with an eagle so we're looking for a few more pigeon chicks. Nothing fancy, just plain-old pigeons.
Geez... guess that's a bit much on the information. Suffice it to say, we love our birds around here. Oh, also feed lots of wild birds and are a registered Backyard Wildlife Santuary.
Rusted One
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