Ha! SOOOOO glad we don't have snakes that big here!
I just got done reading Pauls awesome chicken article
http://www.richsoil.com/raising-chickens.jsp I thought I'd add what my chicken arrangement is...(since he doesn't "like" coops and runs, ha)
There is a three sided shed room, about 8x6, about 6-8 chickens is good number for us(we started off with 12). A piece of plywood is nailed along one side of the opening, otherwise there is no door. I want to make new roosting poles, up high
enough so things can't jump up there to snatch a sleeping chicken. I have an old dog crate for a nesting box, and want to find one more at least. I do want to cover the opening with wire and a chicken flap that is securable--wild birds fly in and gobble up the chicken food. Every once in a while I rake out the old grass and put in new grass. In winter I pile it deep, throw in leaves and fern fronds too. The chickens seem to do alright when it gets really cold despite the open side, the wind doesn't blow in there too bad, and I
feed them some extra corn to heat them up.
Once the chickens know what "home" is then I let them out to forage around after they lay in the morning. My hubby complains about the
poop on the porch, but I don't think it's THAT big of a deal, I just pop it into a plant pot and throw it in the garden.
THere are blackberries all along the fence of the run, and I'll pick off leaves and berries which the chickens love. I also used to grow zuchini for them, and certain kitchen scraps(boy they are good at cleaning chicken bones!) and go pick wild stuff for them to eat.
I have two dogs, a standard poodle and a blue heeler. I taught them the chicken run is NOT ALLOWED, they can't go in there, period, OFF LIMITS. The poodle caught on to not chase chickens pretty quick, and actually she'll follow them around and it looks like she's being protective. The heeler of course was a more difficult challenge to teach, but she learned the no chicken chasing rule too. She would let them take food from her bowl.
Like I said, I would let the chickens out to free range and things were fine. But then we got neighbors who are terrible dog owners--they let their dogs roam, the dogs have no discipline or manners, and the German Shepard is a psychotic lunatic that will kill any small animal/chicken it can catch. I lost two chickens to their dogs(happened on my prop), and they finally penned the dogs(for two years, they are out again now) after I showed up with a baseball bat and a shredded chicken dripping blood on their nice new porch. I have lost a couple chickens to raccoons, but the neighbor's dogs have been the absoulte worst headache. I tried to come up with a positive solution, which is to be the "pack leader" of the neighbor dogs(a GSD and it used to be a mastiff, now they have a lab/spaniel mix) and teach them basic stuff like GO HOME and NO and DROP IT and COME. So it's kinda funny the dogs obey us and not their owners. My dogs will chase them off(esp the heeler) but it's no fun to have dog fights and worry about injury(the poodle got her belly ripped).
For the most part, my dogs seem to keep the coons away from the hosue/coop area. They have a dog door and a fenced area to freely go outside(like at night or when they are in the house, otherwise my dogs run around freely outside when we are outside too), and the heeler is good at barking at stuff, and the coons haven't figured out there isn't a fence(yet, ha). I know there are lots of coons(and bobcats) because there are lots of tracks down around the
pond about 100 yds away.
LOVED the Buff Orpingtons! They thrived. I dont' cull the chickens, I just let them live till they die of old age. I used to have a rooster and he did kill one hen by boinking her to death. About 1/3 of my hens lived to 6 or 7(who didn't get snatched by a coon or a dog, had two that just keeled over one day), and they seemed to be healthy and vigorous otherwise. I did not put the light on them in the winter so they would lay thru, I let them rest. I figured the rest would let them lay longer, and it did seem so. They didn't lay much at all in the last year, but they still gave good poop
Yeah I'm a softy!
Anyways, Paul's article is awesome, tons of stuff to learn in there. When I get chickens again I have plenty of
ash trees I can cut boughs for them. I really like the idea of feeding them lots of different things. I have my fenced veggie garden I can put them in in winter too.
BTW if you bring your chickens treats they learn to follow you around and you can call them and get them back into their pen easily, or round them up etc(that might be a good point for the article
)