On Fri, 16 Nov 2012 10:35:34 +1100, John J > wrote:

>On Fri, 16 Nov 2012 08:42:35 +1100, Jeßus > wrote:
>
>>Fortunately for me, I live in the bush and my poultry can go wherever
>>they want! My chickens are Barnevelders - a dual purpose bird.
>>Still have a few Isa Browns (egg laying machines!), but am phasing
>>them out.
>
>Don't you lose them often to eagles, snakes, dogs etc?

We have eagles and goshawks here but they don't seem to bother the
adult birds. When my goslings were only a few weeks old, I saw a
goshawk try to take a gosling, but the three adult geese I have
weren't having any of that! A cormorant made the mistake of spending
some time in my creek and the geese killed it... Fantastic at
protecting their own babies.

The only real predators here are Quolls, Tasmanian Devils and feral
cats. I rarely see feral cats here though, due to remoteness from any
towns. The quolls are probably my biggest problem here, I've lost one
duck and two chooks to them thus far. Not too bad... one time was
partly my own fault, as I didnt lock the pen one night. Won't happen
again - now that I have a solar powered door with timer in the chook
pen