Raising Chickens

[save$]

A chicken wouldn't five minutes outside a caged in area aroun here. The coons alone cause way too many problems. I now have an electric fence around my vegetable garden. On of the best investments to protect your produce. My dog no longer steals my cucumbers. Electric fence is powered by two "D" cells. Cost about $75 to set the fence up. It doesn't hurt, but you won!t want to touch it twice.

 

[nate379]

Why not? I grew up in Northern Maine and we didn't have the chickens fenced in. Just the cows and pigs.

A chicken wouldn't five minutes outside a caged in area aroun here. The coons alone cause way too many problems. I now have an electric fence around my vegetable garden. On of the best investments to protect your produce. My dog no longer steals my cucumbers. Electric fence is powered by two "D" cells. Cost about $75 to set the fence up. It doesn't hurt, but you won!t want to touch it twice.

 

[save$]

Why not? I grew up in Northern Maine and we didn't have the chickens fenced in. Just the cows and pigs.

Call it the voice of experience. I once had chickens that I allowed to stay in the fenced in yard. (sides with fence dug into the ground, Chicken wire over the top of their yard, yet at night I would awaken to blood curdling noise only to find those dumb birds would go to the edge of the fence and allow a raccoon to reach in and rip their heads off. This happened more than once. I set about to get the raccoon and indeed I did, but that one was only the tip of what was out there. We have coyotes here, and bobcat. Also bald eagles, huge owls, and hawks. Last year, a hunter shot one of those bobcats about 300 ft from my house during the day. I have to keep all my trash in an enclosed bin or the animals will overturn the trash barrels and have it all over the lawn. I have an electric fence around my garden or I wouldn’t get anything out of that.

 

[SmokeyTheBear]

Cheep cheep.

Have you got a lot of chipmunks? That's a good sign how well your chickens are going to fare vs local predators. We have a den of foxes less than 75' from the house and I haven't seen a chippie or a squirrel all Spring. The dogs are freaking out.

I have chipmunks all over the place, still that mink that does its fishing in the brook going through my lot means my birds do not free range, we won't discuss raccoon (got them), fisher (yep one of them comes by on a fairly regular basis) the 'yotes and fox.

The only things that have gone for my birds so far is a neighbor's dog (that dog stays home now, for some strange reason, likely because my boom stick speaks on occasion) and a hawk (which is very difficult to get permission to do something about). I have caught some would be chicken killers in the traps, that is why my boom stick speaks.

 

[MishMouse]

I had a fisher that got into the chicken fence. Didn't have anything to help it to assume room temp so it got away. Didn't catch it in my trap yet, if I do it will not survive.

 

[Wood Duck]

I have six chickens that roost in a coop and until recently free ranged. I am in a semi-rural area and you'd think I would have lost some chickens to predators but that hasn't happened yet. My chickens tend to range over about two acres of land. Unfortunately the two acres they use don't correspond exactly to the two acres I own, but instead extend a cross the street to the neighbors front porch. They are now confined to a chicken tractor (a coop with fenced in area that I move around the yard). I am thinking about a fence to keep them on my property but the tractor keeps them out of the garden so for now they'll stay in the tractor.

 

[Adios Pantalones]

That raccoon likely found its way back without any trouble at all. Then where there is one raccoon there are more.

I have a no release policy on other than domestic animals if it goes in the trap it doesn't exit the trap still breathing. It definitely is not relocated which in most states is illegal.

It's often not effective and/or dangerous for the critter as well. You drop them someplace where there's competition, other predators, they don't have a burrow, don't know where to find water, and may be at serious risk trying to get back to where they started (crossing roads etc)