by Hank Will
Photo by Oscar Gutierrez
Your backyard chickens depend on you for their health, housing and safety, and, in exchange, they will supply eggs, entertainment, pest control, fertilizer, meat and more. You should anticipate losing a bird to predation occasionally, but these tips will help keep your flock safe from a wide variety of predators.
1. If you raise your chicks in a coop, they will naturally return to lay eggs and roost there at night after you let them range all day. Make sure the house is predator-proof and close it up at night once the birds are settled.
2. Elevate the coop off the ground by a foot or more to deter rats, skunks and snakes from living beneath it and stealing eggs, chicks or young hens. Keep the henhouse floor tight and patch any holes that would encourage predators.
3. Secure the coop in a poultry run to discourage four-legged carnivores from having access to your flock. Poultry wire, welded-wire mesh, electric netting or other fencing materials with small openings (or high-voltage electrical pulses) will keep your birds in and predators out.
Bobcats and coyotes are skilled jumpers and can successfully clear 4-foot-high fences, so construct your enclosure tall enough, or add a cover net to keep the visitors from vaulting the fence.
4. Use welded-wire fencing, chicken wire or game-bird netting to cover the chicken run, or install crisscrossing wires overhead to deter hawks and owls from eating your birds. Hungry owls may want their meal right at dusk, or slightly before, so if owls are abundant in your area, don’t wait until dark to close up your coop.
5. Select small-mesh fencing materials for enclosing coops and runs if raccoons and members of the mink or fisher families are a problem. Raccoons and other dexterous animals are notorious for reaching through larger meshed fencing or wire and killing the birds they can reach.
Even though 2-by-3-inch welded-wire fencing is cheaper, if you use 1-by-2-inch mesh or smaller welded wire, you will lose fewer birds.
6. To prevent predators digging beneath your surface fencing, bury galvanized hardware cloth or other welded-wire fencing along the perimeter of the chicken run.
7. A motion-sensor-activated night light or a set of Nite Guard Solar predator-deterrent lights will keep most nocturnal predators away from the coop.
8. If your dogs aren’t tempted to chase running, squawking chickens, give your chicken-friendly dogs the run of the chicken yard – particularly at night.
9. Prepare to take swift action when you discover predation. You can eliminate the predator or restrict its access to your birds. Failure to do so will result in future losses.
10. Leave the perimeter around the coop and chicken yard as cover-free as you can. Go ahead and plant shrubs inside the chicken run – your birds will love the shade and pecking leaves. But many predators are uncomfortable in an area with minimal cover and raccoons are less likely to try to work through a welded-wire enclosure when they have to sit in the open to do it.
9 Comments
We are plagued with nut sedge and hard clay soil around the whole property. I tried to grow a garden not knowing about this weed and it took over nicely. I hear chickens can scratch and clear a former garden from bugs and other things. Can they dig up nut sedge too? It looks like the only garden I will have on this property is with compost mixed with dirt in planters above ground. Folks, take my advice. If you are looking over a property, be aware of noxious weeds that can make gardening nearly impossible. I learned the hard way. At least fruit trees and well kept vines will grow here if the hole is first dug free of nut sedge and new clear soil replaces that first layer. Mulch with a well established boundary and weed whacking around the boundary should keep the nut sedge out, right?
Nice stuff dear. Thanks for sharing it wire containers & trio pines & heavy duty pneumatic casters
I have found that when I lock up my chickens, they get massacred, but when I leave the door open they are fine. I made the decision to do it this way a year ago when I came out to my coop and discovered 5 headless chickens in the coop and realized that if they could get away, like they would in the wild, then maybe one would die, but never all 5! Before I stopped locking them up, I was losing one every week or two, but I have not lost any since I made the change.
I agree with you Plickety: Layers seem to work best for me. I have enclosed two trampoline frames in this way and over the bouncy areas and the solid tarps that cover them. Haven’t lost a single bird yet since changing the fence plan. My chickens roam free most of the day…and are happy to return to the coop ( a converted greenhouse )to roost for the night. I also re purpose scraps of chicken wire from neighbors, around the perimeter at the base.
In particularly bad predation areas, I’ve found layering fencing to work the best. Chainlink/welded wire around the outer perimeter, a clear space at least a mower’s width, 1×2 welded wire around the coop & run, at least 6″ of sand or gravel, and then chicken wire in the inside. The outer fencec keeps the larger predators out, and the gap between the welded wire and the chicken wire keeps the chickens out of grasping little paws. The top of the run should either be roofed or wired, and there should be no gaps in any of the fencing if birds and climbing predators (or even just scavengers) are a problem
I used re-purposed chain-link fencing around my building and as the wire of choice for my run. You can sometimes get good deals on used chain-link locally. I totally encapsulate my run with chain-link, securing it around outside perimeter as well as around the building so that at least a foot drapes out and over the ground. Land predators cannot dig through the fencing and if you take a little time to secure it to the ground (use cheap tent pegs), they can’t get under it either.
In the past, I’ve experienced total devastation a time or two. It is painful and costly. I vowed to never let it happen again. I have not lost a single bird to predators by doing this. I also have an overhead “ceiling” chain-link protection on my run to keep climbing or flying predators out.
Chicken wire and hardware cloth simply cannot compare to chain-link.
A sure way to trap raccoons is to bait your have a heart traps with pecan swirls…….They have a sweet tooth and it works every time.
Marshmallows for coon, works every time. Put a few outside of the trap leading into the trap then they are not weary.
I find that dedicated predators get used to night lights in short order – I’ve placed solar-charged, battery-powered electric wiring around my coops in a ring from about 3″ of the ground up to eighteen inches. They are close enough to the coop to allow me to lower the drawbridge from the coop to the ground over the wires. I also find that if a predator gets through and gets a chicken I use what’s left to bait a Havahart trap, usually with supplemental baiting, for a few days and remove as many active predators as I can. With coyotes I just shoot them as they have a taste for chicken now and I’m not about to make them someone else’s problems. I’ve also found some benefit to using wolf urine from trapping supply companies but the benefits wear off quickly. It does make a nice in-between item until the predators forget about the other measures.