I am lucky to get 6 months out of 6 chickens,,,,,, to many predators around here,,, and they go in bunches, a few months will go by and then2 or 3 will disappear over nightWe let our chickens free range year round, and in 6 years we have only lost one hen to a coyote. We have coyote, fox, bear, wolves, mountain lions, badger, weasels and hawks, owls and eagles here. We dont even lock the chickens up at night. In other parts of the country there are a lot more small predators than we have here, so free range may not be an option. Its not uncommon to see fox and coyote tracks on our back deck or even inside the chicken run. We've seen bears tracks around the coop and last summer we saw a bear looking through the windows in the coop. We lose more calves to coyotes than we've lost chickens.View attachment 15558
I am thinking of shutting them in at night