Keeping a few hens in the back garden is one of the great quiet pleasures of British life, but it does mean you are sharing your patch with some determined wildlife. Foxes are the headline act, and urban foxes in particular have lost much of their fear of people. They are creatures of habit, working the same routes at the same times, and a coop that has been safe for two years is still worth checking every night.
Rats are the other constant. Where there is poultry feed, there are rodents, and rats will take chicks, steal eggs, and chew through plastic and thin timber. Badgers are less common but far more powerful than most people realise — they can tip a lightweight coop and rip open flimsy mesh. Add mink near waterways, stoats in the countryside, and the occasional stray dog, and the case for proper protection builds itself.
The good news is that most losses come down to a handful of weak points, and all of them can be fixed.
Chicken wire keeps chickens in. It does not keep foxes out. A fox will push through it, chew it, or simply tear it apart with its teeth. What you want is welded mesh — ideally 16 or 18 gauge wire with holes no bigger than 25mm by 25mm. It costs more, but it lasts for decades and it is the single best purchase you will make.
Foxes dig, and they are quick about it. A run with mesh sitting flat on the grass is an open invitation. Bury or pin the mesh in an L-shape, running it outwards about 45cm along the ground, then cover it with turf or a few inches of soil. A fox starting to dig will hit the buried mesh and give up.
Height matters too. A fox can clear a two-metre fence from a standing start, and they are excellent climbers. Any run without a roof should have a solid top panel or a mesh roof, and any fence should be at least 1.8 metres with a wobbly or overhanging top section, which makes it much harder to get a grip.
Foxes are surprisingly good with their paws and teeth. They will nudge, lift, and worry at a simple bolt until it slides free. If you have ever found a pop hole open in the morning with no sign of a struggle, that is usually what happened.
Fit two-step latches that need lifting and sliding at the same time, or use a carabiner, a small padlock, or a hook-and-eye paired with a spring catch. On larger gates, a bolt at the top and one at the bottom is better than one in the middle.
Then walk your perimeter with a critical eye. Look for:
Any weak point is the whole defence. Predators find them, and they remember them.
Most attacks happen between dusk and dawn, so the evening routine is where the real protection lies. Shut the pop hole at dusk, every single night, without exception. Hens will put themselves to bed if the coop is dark and draught-free, and once they are in, they are safe behind solid walls.
An automatic pop-hole door that closes on a light sensor is worth its weight in gold if you are out late or away for the odd evening. It is not a substitute for checking, but it removes the human error that causes most losses. Just make sure the timer or sensor is set so that late-foraging hens are not locked out.
Do a quick count before you latch up. Hens that have not gone in may be broody, unwell, or shut out of the coop by a bully, and those are the birds a fox takes. A torch and a two-minute headcount is all it takes.
Finally, tidy up. Spilled feed, windfall fruit, and an unemptied bird table all pull rats and foxes into the garden. Feed in the morning rather than the evening, take leftovers away, and store sacks of layers' pellets in a metal bin with a tight lid.
Rats are a nuisance all year round, and they breed fast. The usual sign is a neat burrow under the coop or along a fence line, plus droppings in the feed shed. Treadle feeders, which only open when a hen stands on the step, are the neatest solution — rats cannot work out how to open them, and neither can mice.
Keep the run base clear of deep litter that hides burrows, and inspect the perimeter weekly. If you do find rats, remove the food source first, then deal with the burrows. Never leave poison where chickens or other wildlife can reach it — it is illegal and dangerous, and there are far better options.
Badgers will come back to a spot for generations, so if you are in a badger area, build heavy. Nothing less than thick timber, concrete base panels, or substantial weldmesh on a rigid frame will hold. Mink, meanwhile, can squeeze through gaps you would swear were too small, so aim for mesh holes no bigger than 25mm everywhere, including the roof.
Do all of this, and you will sleep better, your hens will live longer, and the fox will move on to easier gardens down the road. That is really all there is to it — a good fence, a proper latch, and a habit of shutting up shop every evening.
Perch & Roost shares practical, down-to-earth guidance on back garden poultry keeping and british garden birds for readers across the UK.
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