Hi Amy, don't worry about the predators too much. Just give your birds as secure a place to roost as possible at night, and hope for the best. Like I said, the first year we didn't have any problems at all, except for that hawk, and look what happened the other night, with us leaving the barn open! You do have to tell yourself that you might lose some chickens..that's just the way it is, and unfortunately they are a lot more vulnerable to just about everything, then other pets. They are also prone to a lot of illnesses, and many of those are fatal (boy, do we know about that, too!) We have learned how to accept and handle our losses pretty well, except for our favorites...when we lost our Whitey roo it was just so devastating...and we have had others that were painful to lose, too...but I can't not have chickens, so we just have to keep doing the best we can! We have learned a huge amount about keeping chickens, their illnesses and how to get em well, predators and what to do about em, and everything else; that's part of what makes keeping chickens such a fun hobby, I think.
