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What's your opinion

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jerry	What's your opinion		Lead	[-]
Posts: 1 04/08/09 12:13 PM	I have looked around here and apologize if there is a similar question I have overlooked. I live on 14 acres of woodland with many predators. Killing them off would be a full time, probably fruitless and illegal endeavour. Is it realistic to think that I could build a coop that would keep the coyotes, coons, hawks etc out? I would love a small flock of birds, but see the chalenges far outweigh the benefit. I personaly don't like keeping outside dogs, so that is out. If a good pen is realistic, what would you recomend, one on posts with a run for daytime????
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robin416		#1	[url]	[-]
Posts: 4151 04/09/09 07:05 PM	I personally prefer solid walls, floors and doors. That way they are secure behind solid walls when they are most vulnerable when they roost at night. I don't have much trouble with day time preds for two reasons, our 21 acres is fenced and I do have four dogs outside during the daylight hours and Guineas that will go after fox and have a stand off with a deer. Almost any wire other than poultry netting can be used to build them an outside yard. Driving metal siding or pouring concrete around the bottom of the fence would prevent digging. You can use poultry netting, a solid roof or fly netting to keep flying predators out. Robin Summertown, TN www.silkiesofsummertown.com
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pondguy2004	Keeping your birds alive	#2	[url]	[-]
Posts: 2 04/10/09 07:28 PM	You are probably on the right track with the posts and a wire floor. Have kept 2 16' X 16' X 42" high rolling pens and a 10' X 10' X 54" high rolling pen with no tops. The first ,I built 10 months ago. Saw a coyote just outside of the first one a few days after I built it. Have seen red tailed hawks looking for their oportunity above pens in the trees. No losses from either. Let a chicken fly over the pen and I know I lost at least 2 birds, probably to the neighbor's dog. Pellet gun convinced him to restrict his activities to darkness. I shut birds up in 4' X 4' predator-proof, mini-coops at night. A mink visited us 3 or 4 years ago on 2 nights and a rainy day. Even after being shot at, came back and finished the last 3 of 8 birds, off!! Took him about 30 hours! Weasel family is your toughest customer! The weasel himself can get through 1" chicken wire! Between him and his larger relatives, they often won't quit until all of your birds are bloodless! Most other predators will take one bird at a time, unless they bring the whole family. Whatever you decide to do, I would shut them up in a secure building at night (every night, as they will be watching, just waiting for you to forget)! Had call ducks and they wouldn't go in house at night. Lost 1 to an owl 3 months ago, sold the rest. I take it hard when I loose even 1 bird! I feel like I didn't do my job well enough. Other than some chicken on chicken murders and a couple of accidents, felt prety good about this bunch of, maybe, 180 birds. Raised all but, maybe, 10. That doesn't include the cornish crosses that I now, know, can't be raised in cold weather without a reliable heat source ( dust would stop the thermostat from working). Lost 15 out of 25 from heart attacks and hypothermia. They have few feathers. Good luck!!
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Groverguy574		#3	[url]	[-]
Posts: 319 04/12/09 09:22 AM	I've had poultry for more years that I can remember,and like a lot of folks here had many losses to predators. We live in a rural/farming community, raccoons and opossums are the biggest threat ,they seem to be able to get through,under or over just about any type of typical "poultry fencing" After one of their slaughtering sprees, I decided that maybe some of that woven nylon top-netting would deter the vermin...Nope, raccoons will climb up rip a hole in the netting and climb down into the pen with little effort. I think my turning point was when I had a beautiful flock of black oegb. Had them for years, bred them down to were they were tiny & ''perfect" (can you tell I was proud of them? lol) One morning I walked into the chicken house to see over 27 headless,half-eaten beauties... Soon after that I decided to build a pen for my chickens that I knew would be secure enough to withstand the relentless attacks from raccoons,opossums,hawks and the occasional dog or cat-gone bad. The walls and top are all made of heavy gage 1''x1'' galvanized welded wire. The framework is all treated 4x4 and 2x4. The bottom/floor is basically all chain link fencing , laid out on the ground and nailed to the 4x4 runners and extends out about 2' past the outside of the pen. All this is attached to my pole barn that has a concrete floor. All my doors are spring loaded (sometimes I forget to latch them, this way at least they won't swing open in a breeze)The window has the same heavy screen over it for when I open it in the warm weather. Yes, it sounds like over-kill but at least I can sleep at night. I figure, I'm in this hobby to stay and the money spent on all this expensive housing, feed etc. (not to mention breeding stock) is worth it in the long run.
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jerry		#4	[url]	[-]
Posts: 2 04/13/09 05:54 PM	Thanks for the replies. I will probably give it a try with some common cheapos and see what happens. I have hawks, owls, coons, coyotes, bears, opossums, and god only knows what else. I have never seen or heard of anybody seeing weasels around here but who knows. I wonder if it is all worth the expense and work involved. But again thanks for your advice!
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ProblemSolver.dominiongroup		#5	[url]	[-]
Posts: 2 04/14/09 07:44 AM	My hen house has solid walls, roof, and floor. The pen is square nylon netting over PVC frame, with the frame and net buried about six inches all the way around to foil diggers. We have had a couple young racoons, skunks, a fox, and lots of neighborhood cats. The only thing we've lost a chicken to is a couple of loose neighborhood dogs, but now I keep the gate to the backyard (standard 4' chain-link) more secure. The racoons were trying to get an injured rooster that was being penned separately in a small cage, but I ran out in the middle of the night and spotlighted them in the tree they climbed, and they never came back. Something (a cat, I think) tried to get a hen that was left out one night, and she was sleeping on the ground next to the pen. She lost quite a few feathers, but managed to fly to the lowest branches of the nearby tree (12-15' up). Confronted with the choice, the American people would choose the policeman's truncheon over the anarchist's bomb. - S. Agnew I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. -J. Baldwin The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government. -T. Jefferson Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. -W. E. Deming Luck favors the prepared. - E. Mode
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