Worried about predator's with pasture raising

[Kellarinajo]

Hey ya'll, hope your chicken game is going good and all is well. I am entertaining the idea of pasture raising chickens. I have about 7.5 acres and we just had most of it cleared. Do to the high prices of livestock and everything else, I thought about upping my numbers on my flock and having a pasture flock with a chickshaw or some kind of mobile coop and electric netting fence. I'm worried about predators getting my girls though. I've heard about having black hens to keep Arial predators away?? I don't know how true that is. I have a skinny lot that's long with trees on either side of me. My neighbor has a couple of guardian dogs that kind of protect our property too. Let me know what you think. Tell me your experiences, I'd love to hear them all. Or tell me I'm crazy! lol

 

[Ted Brown]

Free ranging = predator losses. Decision depends on how much tolerance you have.

Chicken is everything's favourite snack, often guardian dogs included.

 

[centrarchid]

I have been doing chickens free-range on about the same acreage. With just chickens I took big losses once in a while. Then I got a dog which helped a lot but did not shut down fox very well. Adding a second dog helped with fox. Owl was still a pain even through owl had a trouble eating kills as dogs prevented that. Still lost the chickens. Then I started doing some fencing around barn and chicken tractors with a dog confined there. No losses there although area too small for anything more than a few chickens. I still kept having some losses in greater part of acreage because one dog could not cover it. Then I upped number of dogs, got some sheep and goats to clear out vegetation and a perimeter fence that fox cannot readily clear while carrying an adult chicken when chased by dogs. Predator losses shut down although seasonally the pasture is not enough to support more than a couple dozen free-range chickens without some supplementation with a complete feed.