Chickens roaming free

_Brian

What are the options for chickens roaming free and protecting them from the Fox.

We’ve no dog, and there’s no shooting about at all, is there any practical way to have chickens out and about and keep the fox away ?

uck51js9zml2yt

Put them in at night

zoe 3619

Mine are loose,but they put themselves to bed in the shed at night and I shut the door for them until morning.
Having said that,we have had a few taken over the years.

_Brian

Fox took one from the back garden at 3:30pm, my daughter had just come in and she saw him taking the chicken.

Not just a nighttime problem

uck51js9zml2yt

Put up an electric fence enclosure that you can move.

Lady Haywire

Ours are roaming free all day & they pack their feather up & tuck themselves into their house each night & we close it.
Pine Marten & foxes around here so to keep them away we leave the radio going 24/7 in the slatted shed. Helps to keep the cows used to strange voices too. Doesn't need to be all that loud, just enough for us to hear the news is enough for it to carry on the air & scare predators away.

_Brian

Lady Haywire wrote: »

Ours are roaming free all day & they pack their feather up & tuck themselves into their house each night & we close it.
Pine Marten & foxes around here so to keep them away we leave the radio going 24/7 in the slatted shed. Helps to keep the cows used to strange voices too. Doesn't need to be all that loud, just enough for us to hear the news is enough for it to carry on the air & scare predators away.

Hadn’t thought of a radio, good idea.

Genghis Cant

We've a good lot of various fowl here, free running on near an acre. We have the perimeter fenced with electric wire on the white plastic stakes. I think there's 6 or 7 runs of wire.
Internally we have some subdivisions with proprietary poultry netting. It's electrified too. We bought two 50 m rolls lately for €100 a roll.

I keep a mink trap set at the perimeter at all times and have caught a good bit in it.

On a related note, get yourself a treadle feeder. The hens get used to it quickly and you'll have no loses or spoiled food to vermin, birds or the weather. Get one that hold a 20 k bag of food and you'll only have to top it up the odd time. Great job if you're away caravaning a weekend or the like :-)

_Brian

So far Mr Fox is our only enemy, id love to give the chickens a bigger space so we could have a few more.