Uploaded July 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
If you own chickens, you know you have to be vigilant because everything loves to eat chickens. Even if you believe your chickens are safe, everything that eats chickens is constantly surveying and watching your setup looking for weaknesses. As soon as they identify a weakness they begin to exploit it further weakening it. Without intervention, its all over for your chickens. That means fixing a problem as soon as you see it because if you wait until tomorrow, you won't have any chickens. In this example, a small 2" hole barely big enough to stick my fingers in grew overnight to 6" and has fur on it ... but the chickens are ok for now, as long as I fix it today and that's exactly what I am doing.
What kind of chicken predators can you expect to deal with? Each location will be different but in Kentucky that can be dogs; coyote; any of the protected raptors or birds of pray including falcon, hawks, eagles species (bald eagle, golden eagle, peregrine falcon, merlin, american kestrel, ospreys, northern harrier, coopers hawk, red shouldered hawk, sharp shinned hawk, red tailed hawk, broad winged hawk, rough-legged hawk, the commonly called chickenhawk consists of both coopers hawk and sharp-shinned hawk), raccoons, opossum, weasels, household or feral cats, foxes, skunks, various snakes, various owls, bears, bobcats, and other humans.
Here is how quickly a hawk can kill a chicken, right in front of me, it swooped down and killed the chicken less than 15 feet away literally before I could open the camera app and hit record on my phone that was already in my hand. This video was recorded 7 years ago when I used to let chickens free range. It killed a 2nd chicken a few days later. I don't let chickens free range anymore because although you might get away with it for a short while (2 years for me) when you first start raising chickens, eventually all the predators in the area will know you have chickens and from that moment on they will constantly knock them down one at a time until there are no more left: youtube.com/watch?v=UvV-FQ4c6AY
If you own chickens, its your responsibility to stay vigilant and protect them so these are supplies you should always have on hand to quickly fix any holes and mend chicken coops - a small hole will be a huge hole overnight:
hardware cloth: amzn.to/3IeyMEx
fence staples: amzn.to/40CV5Km
hardware cloth cutter: amzn.to/4nzv7BA
tape measure: amzn.to/40q4cyj
hammer: amzn.to/46qqaoj
trail cameras I use to identify predators: amzn.to/3GMpejO
medium/small live traps I use to trap predators (medium opossum racoon size, small weasel size) amzn.to/4nRFAbE
a better weasel trap (place in entrance to medium/small trap above or build a narrow long box) amzn.to/3GRYHBA
weasel trap setting tool - usually not needed for weasel style body traps or 110 size but you can make them from 2 pieces of bar stock +available 1 bolt and nut at lowes/home depot - just drill a hole midway down 2 pieces of 14-18" long bar stock, stick a bolt and fasten it with a nut, on one end of the 2 bar stocks grind a groove - these are used like scissors to collapse the springs on this style trap. If you don't want to make it, you can buy one too: amzn.to/4lV1kBF
If you own chickens, you know you have to be vigilant because everything loves to eat chickens. Even if you believe your chickens are safe, everything that eats chickens is constantly surveying and watching your setup looking for weaknesses. As soon as they identify a weakness they begin to exploit it further weakening it. Without intervention, its all over for your chickens. That means fixing a problem as soon as you see it because if you wait until tomorrow, you won't have any chickens. In this example, a small 2" hole barely big enough to stick my fingers in grew overnight to 6" and has fur on it ... but the chickens are ok for now, as long as I fix it today and that's exactly what I am doing.
What kind of chicken predators can you expect to deal with? Each location will be different but in Kentucky that can be dogs; coyote; any of the protected raptors or birds of pray including falcon, hawks, eagles species (bald eagle, golden eagle, peregrine falcon, merlin, american kestrel, ospreys, northern harrier, coopers hawk, red shouldered hawk, sharp shinned hawk, red tailed hawk, broad winged hawk, rough-legged hawk, the commonly called chickenhawk consists of both coopers hawk and sharp-shinned hawk), raccoons, opossum, weasels, household or feral cats, foxes, skunks, various snakes, various owls, bears, bobcats, and other humans.
Here is how quickly a hawk can kill a chicken, right in front of me, it swooped down and killed the chicken less than 15 feet away literally before I could open the camera app and hit record on my phone that was already in my hand. This video was recorded 7 years ago when I used to let chickens free range. It killed a 2nd chicken a few days later. I don't let chickens free range anymore because although you might get away with it for a short while (2 years for me) when you first start raising chickens, eventually all the predators in the area will know you have chickens and from that moment on they will constantly knock them down one at a time until there are no more left: youtube.com/watch?v=UvV-FQ4c6AY
If you own chickens, its your responsibility to stay vigilant and protect them so these are supplies you should always have on hand to quickly fix any holes and mend chicken coops - a small hole will be a huge hole overnight:
hardware cloth: amzn.to/3IeyMEx
fence staples: amzn.to/40CV5Km
hardware cloth cutter: amzn.to/4nzv7BA
tape measure: amzn.to/40q4cyj
hammer: amzn.to/46qqaoj
trail cameras I use to identify predators: amzn.to/3GMpejO
medium/small live traps I use to trap predators (medium opossum racoon size, small weasel size) amzn.to/4nRFAbE
a better weasel trap (place in entrance to medium/small trap above or build a narrow long box) amzn.to/3GRYHBA
weasel trap setting tool - usually not needed for weasel style body traps or 110 size but you can make them from 2 pieces of bar stock +available 1 bolt and nut at lowes/home depot - just drill a hole midway down 2 pieces of 14-18" long bar stock, stick a bolt and fasten it with a nut, on one end of the 2 bar stocks grind a groove - these are used like scissors to collapse the springs on this style trap. If you don't want to make it, you can buy one too: amzn.to/4lV1kBF
