5 Proven Tips On Keeping Nuisance Wildlife Away From Your Chickens

When the Covid-19 pandemic started up in February there was a significant cultural shift into stockpiling food and toiletries. Shelves were quickly barren and there were even reports of physical altercations over rolls of toilet paper. About a month after the consumer hoarding had first started a second wave of consumers started emptying shelves of some different categories of “necessities”.

Stores like Rural King, Tractor Supply, local feed supply stores, and online hatcheries were quickly selling out of poultry netting, starter feed, heat lamps, bedding, and chicks. Within 12 days the national supply of chicks in most markets was as barren as the toiletry shelves in a local Kroger.

“Sales went up — a lot,” said Tom Watkins, vice president of Murray McMurray Hatchery in Webster City, Iowa, one of the country’s oldest and largest hatcheries that ships nationwide. Watkins said chick sales at McMurray are up about 400% from 2019. 

Across the U.S, people were buying record numbers of chicks. Industry analysts say people fearing food shortages planned on raising chickens to produce their own meat and eggs in the months to come. Experts say people are also buying chicks to have a backyard activity while they were quarantined at home. (SIERRA DAWN McCLAIN Capital Press April 8, 2020)

Now almost 5 months after the “Chick Boom of 2020” those cute little fluff balls are all grown up and starting to wander in yards, coops, and runs across the Cincinnati area. All of the new birds, the spilled and left out feed, and the abundance of eggs are a welcome addition to the ecosystem for many of the nuisance wildlife species here in the greater Cincinnati area. Even as I write this, the motion sensor flood light on our farm’s egg layer coop is going off no doubt because a racoon is in the chicken yard cleaning up the spilled feed left over by the hens today.

Here are 5 solid tips on keeping your flock and your eggs protected from nuisance wildlife. Nothing is more heartbreaking to come across a dead bird, or a pilfered nesting box. Take it from a guy who knows first hand.

Make Sure The Birds Have a Secure Roosting Location

Our 22 egg layers and one rooster (I will talk about him in a minute) “go to bed” every night at dawn in a 8x8 storage shed we built out as a chicken coop. Each night, the birds are counted, the eggs are collected, and the doors are securely locked until we let them out in the morning. Any gaps or seams in the construction are covered with hardware cloth, and the vents are also reinforced with hardware cloth. As I mentioned above, we have a solar powered LED flood light that lights up the chicken yard if anything approaches the coop in the night to deter raccoons, skunks, opossums, foxes, and coyotes. Without that security, the previous mentioned wildlife would feast on the eggs and the actual birds leaving us nothing but feathers come morning. 

If You Freerange Or Open Air Yard Your Birds, Get A Rooster If Allowable

We have a 1.5 year old rooster named Vinny. I am not gonna lie, Vinny is a dick. As much as my wife and I curse him when he rushes us, pecks at our legs, and causes a scene if we need to approach one of his “girls”, without Vinny we would not have such a safe and healthy flock of productive egg layers. Along with informing the girls of food sources, and fertilizing their eggs, Vinny’s second role in the flock is to watch out for and protect his girls. It is actually pretty amazing to see it in action, when a potential threat is seen by Vinny, he gives out a very distinct set of clucks and all of the girls take shelter. Vinny is constantly surveying the landscape along with the sky for threats during the day such as feral dogs, cats, snakes, and hawks. I know he is doing a great job because in the year and a half he has been on our farm, we have not lost one bird to a hawk. My neighbors without a rooster have lost multiple birds to hawks in the past year. Just be sure to check with local codes and ordinances to ensure it is okay to have a rooster.

Manage Feed And Clean Up Spills

As I mentioned before, while I sit at my kitchen table writing this, I am seeing the coop light flick on and off as the motion sensor keeps tripping. Likely some species of nuisance wildlife is cleaning up the spilled chicken feed, foraging for the uneaten scratch, or taking a portion of the watermelon we cracked open for the girls this evening. If you leave food out in the yard/coop at night, that will likely attract unwanted visitors to your yard/coop. You have two options then. One, ensure that the birds are secure at night and if the nuisance wildlife visits become frequent, implement a trapping program to remove the offending animals. Or two, each night clean up and remove any unconsumed food/treats to not attract nightly visits from unwanted visitors. You can probably guess what option we use on our farm.

Collect Eggs Frequently

Many nuisance wildlife species such as skunks, weasels, minks, rats, snakes, and opossum love nothing more than a fresh laid egg for a snack/meal. Leaving eggs out in the open, or letting them accumulate in the nesting boxes can create a habit in nuisance wildlife that learn to see your coop/yard as a food source of tasty egg deliciousness. Collecting the eggs at minimum daily, preferably multiple times throughout the day will help keep the egg thieves at bay.

Count Your Chickens Every Night

The phrase in our farm is “22, Oh Phew”. Everynight at dawn we count to make sure all the girls have made it in the coop and are roosting for the night. Even though we provide them food, water, enrichment, and a pretty lavish lifestyle for a bird, occasionally one of them (oftentimes our New Hampshire Reds) will get excited and accidentally fly outside of the chicken yard fence. If the erant bird does not spend the night in the secured coop, she is an easy meal for a coyote, fox, owl, or one of many other night active predators lookin for a quick meal. We count every night, and if one is missing we drop everything to locate her and get her back in the coop. Luckily the girls WANT to sleep in the coop, so if one gets outside the fence, she will not stray far and all that is left is corralling her through the fence gate and back in the coop for the night. Count your chickens… hatched or unhatched… count them.

If you follow these five tips, the safety and security of your flock of birds will be ensured and you will not have to worry about your investment disappearing in the blink of an eye. If you need help in wildlife proofing your coop with proven exclusion techniques, or if you have a frequent unwelcome visitor to your coop or yard, Huntsman Wildlife would be honored to be entrusted with the safety and security of your flock, just click on the contact us button above and let us know how we can help.

Till Next Time… See Ya Folks.