How to Protect Your Chickens from Predators

A good coop fails if the door is open for one night. Most predator protection comes down to closing, covering and burying.

By the Egg Cost Check team · Published 2026-10-19 · Updated 2026-10-19

Who hunts your flock, and when

Poultry Extension: Predator Management for Small and Backyard Poultry Flocks says hawks typically hunt in the daytime, great horned owls usually strike at night, bobcats prefer dawn and dusk but will attack at any time, coyotes are mostly active at night, and least weasels are active day and night. University of Maryland Extension: Prevention of Predation also names dogs, foxes, raccoons, opossums, skunks, rats, cats and snakes.

Lock the flock in every night

• The Maryland guide says night is the highest-risk period and advises locking birds inside.
• Poultry Extension advises roosting the flock in a secured space and closing and locking every door. It suggests feeding and watering the birds indoors at dusk to teach them to go in.
• Maryland lists open doors as a cause of losses.

Use the right wire

• Chicken wire is not predator-proof. Poultry Extension says least weasels can squeeze through holes as small as 1/4 inch and typically can get through chicken wire.
• Hardware cloth is the material both sources point to for buried barriers.
• Welded wire over the run is the recommendation for persistent predators.
• Maryland advises keeping gaps wider than 1/4 inch out of the places where chickens roost, to reduce snake access.

Stop diggers

Maryland says to bury hardware cloth in a trench 12 inches to 1.5 feet deep around the whole coop. Poultry Extension says at least 12 inches (30.5 cm). Maryland also advises raising the coop off the ground to keep out mice, rats and weasels, and patching holes in the floor.

Cover the run

• Cover the run with mesh wire or netting against flying predators, and use hawk netting if hawks or owls are a serious problem.
• Poultry Extension says orange netting is best because hawks and owls see orange well, and that the cover must be secure, since hawks can get through loose or weak spots.
• It notes that raccoons may pull a bird's head through wire, which is another reason to protect the run, not only the coop.

What the sources do not tell you

The pages we read give no latch design. Raccoons use their paws, so pick hardware that you have seen hold up and test it yourself before you trust it with the flock.

All of this goes into the setup number in the calculator. See startup costs for the full list.

Sources

• Poultry Extension: Predator Management for Small and Backyard Poultry Flocks
• University of Maryland Extension: Prevention of Predation

More guides

• Backyard Flock Health: Bird Flu, Salmonella and Safe Eggs
• Are Backyard Chickens Cheaper Than Buying Eggs?
• Backyard Chicken Startup Costs: What to Budget For
• How Much Feed Do Laying Hens Need? A Simple Way to Budget

How we write: we link the sources we use, we label examples as examples and we do not claim hands-on results we have not had. See our method. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.