Most days I let my 7 hens out of their run so that they can range around our property. They eat bugs and scratch around under the fruit trees. They will range over most of our property, except for the wooded areas, and except for the vegetable garden which is well fenced for deer and rabbits. The flower gardens I have low chicken wire around, staked by bamboo. Even though it is only about 18 inches high, and they can fly, they don’t. It keeps them out so they don’t destroy my flowers.
Aside from providing us with the most amazing organic eggs, they eat meat bits that I don’t want to put into the compost or garbage. My Chicken Girls provide us with a hefty addition to the compost about 3 times a year when I clean out their coop. Thus, it creates a wonderful circle of life for our garden; from their droppings to the compost, from the compost to the garden, from the garden and the nesting box to our table, and from our table scraps back to the hens.
We have a predator-proof (not including bears) coop and run for our girls, and also always have a dog or dogs that keep the raccoons at bay.
I had a hard lesson about raccoons when I first got chickens. Normally I would let my dogs out of the house in the morning and they would chase away any raccoons, mink, whatever before I let the girls out. Then one morning I let the hens out early before the dogs could do their work, and they were attacked. I lost 4 of my 8 hens to raccoons that morning. They just took them without leaving a feather behind, and the 4 that got away were traumatized. So that’s how I learned to let the dog guardians do their work first.
We recently installed a night camera in the back yard and I’m amazed at the activity happening at night. Normally there are are least two cats (different) and a raccoon or two. Last night three baby raccoons scampered through. They were adorable and don’t seem to do any damage whatsoever. No chickens here, however!
