Worrying about what could happen

[ackie]

I definitely think using the predator proofing suggestions and looking at what you'd expect to see in your area is a great idea. If you fix everything up and you still worry, that's okay. Sometimes I'll get up and double check things if the worry is keeping me from sleeping, and then eventually I think you'll learn to trust yourself and sleep more soundly. If not, I second talking to a doctor or therapist because anxiety is no fun.

 

[cmom]

We are already planning on getting hardware cloth this spring and summer. Our dogs are not out at night, so they are unprotected. A few months ago we had a rat problem so we set up some trail cameras and traps. For a week we had this, and nothing but a rat was seen in our yard. I do want to get the hardware cloth anyways since I would rather be safe than sorry. If I have any more questions I'll ask, but you guys have been very helpful. One last question I have is that if you look at one of my pictures of the coop you can see the ventilation up at the top of the photo. It is only covered wit chicken wire on bottom, and both sides are pretty high up, the back one is a little lower but still taller than I am. Do you think they are okay? Our chickens sit right in front of those vents during the summer, and I want to make sure that is safe as well.

I had chicken wire around under the eve of one coop. The chicken wire did eventually rust out but I never had an issue with a predator trying to go through it. I did replace it eventually with some welded wire. On other coops I have used hardware cloth. Some areas of the country are more prone to predators. I don't know why. We have plenty here, but for the most part they don't bother my birds. I have seen plenty of predators mostly on my cameras on my property. Maybe the electric wires around the coops and pens are the main deterrent. Good luck...

 

[Bejep714]

We have gotten chicken wire for our windows but have not put them up yet. We let our chickens in their run for the first time in almost a month because it finally got dry. Over the month we have had all snow on the ground and in that time I have seen no predator tracks in or around our yard. All the tracks I found were rabbit tracks since there is a rabbit living in our garage, and cat tracks along the outside of our fence. I'm pretty sure they are the garage cat I talked about earlier. I am very happy that I have not seen any predators or predator tracks along or near our chicken coop at night. We are thinking about getting a baby rooster from one of our Amish neighbors. I know this is not the right forum, but does anyone have a good way to introduce a 6 week old rooster into a 1 year old 9 chicken flock? I'm not sure what breed he will be.
Thank you