{"id":697,"date":"2013-06-20T09:08:40","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T13:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/?p=697"},"modified":"2013-06-20T09:08:40","modified_gmt":"2013-06-20T13:08:40","slug":"protecting-your-flock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/?p=697","title":{"rendered":"Protecting Your Flock"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Late last night we had a predator visit our yard. \u00a0Not sure what it was, we never got a good look at it before the dogs chased it off (the Norwegian Buhund is a great protector of the farm and you can reserve your puppy now from our litter expected July 2013) but whatever it was, it had the chickens making such a racket!<\/p>\n

Over the warmer months, we do not lock our chickens up in their coop at night due to the heat. \u00a0The chicken coop is inside the chicken run. \u00a0In the 2 years we’ve been raising chickens we have not lost a single one to a predator! \u00a0Our secret\u2026..a chicken run that’s built like Fort Knox! \u00a0No one is getting in! \u00a0Here we have to worry about raccoons, opossums, hawks and skunks, but there’s also fox and coyote which are a little rarer but around nonetheless. \u00a0Our chicken run is also inside our fenced in yard.<\/p>\n

The chicken’s run is a large chain link dog kennel. \u00a0Chain link is not sufficient itself in keeping your chickens safe from predators. \u00a0Raccoons and opossums especially, can reach thru and pull them out! \u00a0It doesn’t seem possible but believe me when I say it is! The bottom 3 feet of the run is also wrapped with chicken wire\u00a0on the inside! \u00a0<\/strong>You do not want it on the outside because chicken wire is also not a sufficient aid in protection. \u00a0Many predators can either chew right thru it or pull it down\/off. \u00a0Then we used hardware cloth which is much stronger than chicken wire to create a “roof” on the top of the run. \u00a0This prevents anything from flying or climbing in and we make sure our roosts are low enough to be out of reach from would be “grabbers” from above. \u00a0Now for the issue of diggers from underneath. \u00a0We again used hardware cloth and anchored it flat on the ground 3 feet out from the bottom of the run on the outside. \u00a0Then we put large patio blocks on top of that all the way around the run. \u00a0Our ground was too hard to bury it so that’s why we laid it flat. \u00a0It didn’t take long for it to disappear under the soil and grass.<\/p>\n

If you live in a more rural area then southeast MI you may have to tweak this a bit depending on what predators you have to worry about. \u00a0I will tell you that this is no challenge for larger more dangerous animals such as bear or mountain lions, but it has worked great for us!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Late last night we had a predator visit our yard. \u00a0Not sure what it was, we never got a good look at it before the dogs chased it off (the Norwegian Buhund is a great protector of the farm and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2jrxr-bf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=697"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":699,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions\/699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roseshadowranch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}