The chicken coop... It keeps the chickens alive at night when predators roam freely, it provides a sense of security and shade during the hottest parts of the day, it is the chickens home.
Our chickens have roamed freely around our yard, pooping on the patio and eating all of the plants in our garden, and destroying all of what little landscaping we thought we had for the 3 years we have kept them. Soon after we started keeping chickens, the predators started arriving. First the fox. We let the chickens out when it still dark and I swear, that fox had been circling our yard trying to figure out how to get to our flock for at least a year, before we made that very horrible mistake. That fox then happily made off with 5 of our most loved chickens.
Our dog, Veeka the french bulldog is completely fine with our full grown hens and has never hurt any of them but is a completely different story when it comes to chicks... She has now killed 4 of them, in 3 different occasions.
The hardest predator to deal with is the hawk in my opinion because that can fly. We got home from school one day to a beautiful creature (the hawk) perched contently on our fence by the chicken coop. 2 chickens were dead, beheaded to be more specific, that day was very sad. Very very sad... 4 days ago we learned that a hawk had made a nest in our neighbors trees. Soon after we were outside and saw a large bird fly by. The chickens immediately froze (great getaway, right?) and looked up at the sky. I learned on the internet that chickens can tell the silhouette of a hawk apart from all harmless birds so we knew there was a hawk on the loose. So, to solve our problem, we bought some deer netting from tractor supply and put it over a fenced in part of our yard. This was yesterday. At first I felt bad about them not being able to free range, but I definitely feel safer for them now.
You can see the netting at the top of the picture. This insures the chickens will stay in, and the hawks out. In the picture you can see a black shade tarp providing more shade for our hens.
.tiff)
One more thing before I go, well 2...
WARNING: Rhode Island Reds and New Hampshire Reds will literally kill other chickens, they are so territorial. One of our silkies was killed by them. They will do fine if they know that chicken all their life, but if a new chicken is introduced into the flock, they will do everything they can to show they are boss... Sadly, they even bullied a chicken (Percy) who we have had from the very beginning because she lets them get away with it. She never fights back, she is too sweet. Yesterday we came apon them trying to kill percy, and our other chicken Eggie so we immediately switched all of our reds with our 2 silkies and now the reds are in the eglu and the silkies are adapting to their new habitat with the rest of our hens.
ANOTHER WARNING, HEAT RELATED: Yesterday we found one of our much loved hens, who had been acting fine 2 hours earlier, dead in the nesting box. Her name was Omelet and she was a Leghorn. It was about 105 degrees. All of the hens had access to fresh drinking water and shade but laying an egg is hard work. We hope no more hens die in this crazy weather, and we feel like we were doing everything we could, even running a sprinkler back there to keep the hens alive, but the intense heat won. If you live in an area where there is heat above 90 degrees you need to make sure your chickens have access to clean drinking water, shade, and possibly even a fan in times like these. Hens may stop laying eggs in extreme heat waves, and instead of being mad, be glad. Laying an egg, like I said earlier can be a dangerous job in intense heat, and you could lose one of your prized hens because of it.
Thank you so much for reading and I hope some of these tips will help you ensure your hens the best life possible. Obviously, yesterday was a very, very busy day at our house.
Your chicken loving friend,
Iris
