Backyard Poultry Info Centre

My chooks have been allowed to freerange since midday today.

Due to circumstances beyond my control I have not slept in almost 74 hours and am now struggling to stay awake.

I have tried to get the chooks back into their safe yard but they are having none of it. I live in suburbia and have not seen a fox in a long time. I have set my alarm for 8pm. Do you think my little flock will be ok?

yes, go to bed

It sounds like you don't have a choice. I've had to work later than expected occasionally and haven't had too many major issues. But obviously the more often you do it the greater the risk becomes of getting caught out. Once I came home in the dark only to see a fox hightail it out of my coop. The birds weren't even disturbed so I was lucky. But then, I am practically sounded by foxes in total farmland.

Ditto what rayan said!

I became a bit too blase about it because my chooks would either put themselves to bed or huddle somewhere warm together. That was until one day I didn't come home till after dusk and 'something' had taken 3 of my birds. Another time the door of the coop wouldn't close properly, so I just jammed it shut hard as I could, well that night we had a windstorm and a huge snake managed to get the door open and eat my babies!

If I could turn back time, I would never have left my chooks out.

In your circumstance though, if you can't get them to bed, then what are you supposed to do, exhaust yourself waiting for them?
I guess you have to take the risk and hope they are OK.

Hope you sleep OK and wake up with goods news.

I'm a worry wart .I race home so my girls are ok even get out of over time as its to dark .Haven't had a problem.We are surrounded by suburban foxes, cats and cats gone feral not to mention huge brown snakes.Mind you all our neighbours four of them have dogs. A cat was over the fence last night at 10.30 chooks tucked safely up in their shed.
They should be fine
We had friends who had ducks .He helped me rebuild the old tool shed into a chook shed .Well we/ he welded it I put it back together.I'm saying we should enclose the shed like an Avery. He tells the wife why do that it will cost to much .Done and dusted she said no way.
Now many years(lost track) latter I'm enclosing the chook shed on my next LSL circumstances have changed .My problem is getting someone who is home to let the girls out to free range at an early enough time teenagers and early 20's kids argghhhhh.
Now back to this old/ex friends .They had ducks I always asked why don't u lock them up at night.His answer was we never have and they are fine .Result 1 night a fox killed all bar 1!!

Oh and cats we have a problem with at least 1 during the day.I think the cat has a truce with my girls .It goes near them oldest girl she rides him like a bull rider !!!Wife was shocked when she this
Have caught him in the chook shed once not sure who was more scarred me or him

You would be very unlucky if anything happened. Hope all is well1

Your health and well being is more important than that of the chooks.
Sleep deprivation regardless of the cause can cause major problems to your health.
So I hope you are

I hope you got your much needed sleep idealistic, and that all of your chooks survived.

Perhaps for a future problem like this you could try what I do:

Keep a large jar full of sunflower seeds (the ones without the husk), and train them to recognise the jar, and the sound of the lid being screwed off. Preferrably a tin lid as they make most noise. Shake the jar too, and they will learn to recognise that sound as well.

Call your girls to come and get a handful of the seeds scattered somewhere. Only a small amount of seeds, you don't want them to leave any uneaten, or get overful on sunflower seeds. Vary the places each time you do this. Ensure that they see you scattering the seeds.

Then, when you've trained your chooks to recognise the jar and the outcome, if you need them to go into the run quickly, just grab the jar, call the chooks and scatter the seeds in the run. When they're all in there eating their silly (but cute) little heads off you shut the gate on them. Viola! Chooks safe in the run!

I do this with mine whenever I need to, and never have problems getting them locked up safely.

Actually now-a-days I only have to go and stand in the run and all the girls come back in to see what I'm doing. But if I need to get them in quickly, I use the sunflower seed con.

Mine all got wise to that old trick Now I just use a very wide rake,it works(mostly)

agree with macl27....you are more important than the chooks.........being a shift worker i used to let them out before work and lock em in when I get home, having hasd a fox come in @ 6am after I had let them out I stopped letting them out too early , they have to stay locked in for the day then I was letting them out when home in the morning but some days it was 1030 pm before I got home, all went well, fox usually doing his rounds between 2-3 am, then he decided to visit earlier, now my chooks only get let out if I am there to lock them in at dusk too.....not happy chooks, but they are safe bet they are looking forward to my days off this week,cheers pam

Well I got a few hours sleep......then went out and did a head count.........all accounted for in their relative coops ............. phew!!.................closed their coops and then staggered back to bed!

Although they were all safe and sound I wont be taking it for granted.............it was just a case of exceptional circumstance!

That is a relief !! Hope you have caught up with your

Oddly I was just a minute ago thinking why would anyone really use the sleeping emoticon?

Thanks for giving folk a chance to use it Idealistic!

Can't bear to see an emoticon going to waste.......

Glad your gals were all ok.

glad Im useful for something chookwhisperer!

I am so happy and relieved for you that your chickens are ok... I have had two fox raids over the last three weeks, one at just before 5 pm and the other at about lunchtime. I now have no chickens or roosters left at all for the first time in 5 years but I do have lots of little graves. I was home both times.

I don't mean to be a negative nancy (apologies to anybody out there named Nancy) but my point is that there is never any guarantee. I always thought I was safe as long as my chooks were away before dark and let out after dawn. I have learnt the hard way that this is not the case. I also lost 5 last December at 2 in the afternoon to a fox pup (I was eyeball to eyeball with him) but I thought this was just a one off and unlikely to happen again. So, nearly 5 years with no problems then 3 hits all in the last 7 months.

I won't be getting any more poultry now until I can enclose them completely.

Having said all that and bringing everybody down (sorry), you can't be there all the time, you can do everything right and it may never, ever happen to you and your chooks. But with free ranging chooks, it is best to be prepared, cause when you least expect it, it just might.

Katrina
(Can you tell I'm not much fun to be around at the moment? Bitter & twisted much?)