Protecting Chickens From Predators

Raising chickens is a valuable practice for any homesteader, but protecting chickens from predators can be a tough job.

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by Adobestock/OceanProd

Chickens are valuable for any homestead, but protecting chickens from predators can be tough. Keep your flock safe and happy.

Your backyard chickens depend on you for health, housing and safety. In return, they will supply you with eggs, entertainment, pest control, fertilizer, meat and more. But as prey animals, chickens are also the subject of great interest to everything from domestic dogs to snakes, rats, owls and hawks. You should expect to lose a bird to predation occasionally, but there are some tips that will go far to help keep your flock safe.

Train your birds to return to the chicken house every evening — and be sure to close it up. If you raise your chicks in that coop, they will naturally return to lay eggs and roost at night after you let them range for the day. Make sure the house is varmint-proof and that you close it up at night once the birds have settled.

Raise the chicken coop off the ground by a foot or so to discourage rats, skunks and snakes from taking up residence beneath it and stealing eggs, chicks or young hens. Be certain to keep the henhouse floor tight and patch any holes that snakes and rats can get through.

Enclose the coop in a secure poultry run to discourage dogs, coyotes, bobcats and other four-legged carnivores from gaining access to your flock. Welded-wire mesh, electric netting or other fencing materials with sufficiently small openings will help keep your birds in and predators out. Bobcats and coyotes are fantastic jumpers and can easily clear 4-foot-high fences, so build your enclosure appropriately tall, or add a cover net to keep the varmints from vaulting the fence.

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