Jen asked on Facebook what we do with the chicks so I figured I'd hook you up with our system.
We have a wire panel fence and inside on the bottom of it is a layer of chicken wire. This keeps the chicks in the panel fence. Around the outside of the panel fence we have an electrified electric mesh fence. This is to keep critters, like cats, out of the pen.
The shelter is simply a piece of plywood leaning up against the side panel with two rebar posts on the ground side to make sure it stays there. There is a light, outside the panel that shines under the plywood shelter. The second piece of plywood is on the outside of the panel fence and keeps the wind out of that side of the shelter. We only get wind in one direction here normally so this works.
On the top of the front right corner of the panel fence there is a fence post with a black garbage bag tied to it. This is a crow/raptors deterrent. It works. It works really well as long as you move it every two days or so.
The plastic owl, his name is Fred, sits on the back corner of the panel fence. He's a good crow deterrent too. He's broken so he head no longer moves, what is with curious cows and owls anyway?, but he still works.
Chip, the big black dog, loves the chicks and watches over them like a mother hen. He will not warn us if something happens to them though. He will sit and watch a raven or crow eat them. His, self proclaimed job is to keep them all in the electric fence later when they are excape artists until they grow too big for the holes. He does this all day long for as long as it takes. He tried to teach Tucker this when he was a puppy but Tucker thinks this is boring.
Tucker, the big white dog, is a LGD. He's half Manama and half golden retriever. This makes him an wonderful kids dog and a fantastic bird dog. He hates Ravens, crows, Hawks etc. He even barks are airplanes. He paroles the chick pen several times a day, sneering at Chips affection for the chicks, on the look out for raptors. If he sees one he chases it off. We've seen him do this repeatedly until we have very few problems with raptors here. They were our biggest killer of chicks until we got him.
Right now he and a sneaky raven are duelling it out every morning. The sneaky raven steals eggs out of the hen pen and Tucker chases him off at least twice a morning.
The trick to keeping raptors off the chicks seems to be movement. So my chair is also out there and moved around every time I go out. When they get get big enough to move around in the electric netting we have way less problems with the raptors as long as we move them to every day to second day. Three days is too long. Something has to move every day or two or the raptors will attack.
The chicks will live in this fence just like it is in the picture for about a week, then we will open up the panel fence in the morning and let them graze in the electric fence during the day. At night they get shut up in the panel fence again. We add more electric fencing the 3rd week and normally by then they aren't using their heat lamp at night much and we only do have it on when the temp drops a bit but better safe then sorry. When they are big enough not to be a easy catch for the raptors we start moving them around daily on the grass with a different shelter and no heat lamp until butchering day :) The fence post garbage bag goes with them always as does Fred. Fred normally has a lawn chair in the pen and the fence post gets moved during chores every day, even if we move the pen that day. Some of those sneaky Ravens/crows will get used to the pen moving but they don't like the bag moving.
And there you have it. :) Hope that answers all your questions :)
Have a great y'all!!
