I So 



CHAPTER XV. 



F.N EM Its IN THE YARD. 



The poultry-yard is subject to many depredators, and before passing from the more general 

 portion of this work it may be well to devote a few paragraphs to the various modes in which these 

 may be either captured or defied. 



Against thieves or foxes little can be done beyond making -the roosting-house secure, and 

 keeping a good watch-dog, or fixing some kind of alarum. Grown fowls have little to fear except 

 from these two. Foxes might be shot, but that in many parts of England this would be regarded 

 as almost equal to killing a man. Alarums which go off when a door is opened clandestinely are 

 easily contrived, but need caution. We knew a case in which one was arranged so as to explode 

 a fulminating compound unless the door were opened in a particular way ; and one day the lady 

 proprietor herself, forg-etting the elaborate contrivance, let it off unawares, and received a shock to 

 her nervous system of rather a severe character. 



Cats are only enemies to small chickens, and when these are about a pound weight they are, 

 as regards this animal, pretty much out of danger. We have already described the covered coop, 

 by which very young chickens may be preserved ; but after a week or two such close confinement 

 is by no means beneficial. The plan may however be extended by enclosing a large run with a 



fence about six feet high, made of netting, which very few cats will attempt to scale. In our own 

 case we have enclosed a yard about fifty by thirty-five feet, and finding the cats jumped into this from 

 the bottom of a lean-to roof at one end, we stretched a yard-wide piece of netting, upright, along this 

 bottom edge, and find the animals completely baffled ; they walk along the roof and look through 

 the netting, but will not face the climb and consequent jump which they must overcome before 

 they can enter the run. We have for the last six years always protected a chicken-run in this way, 

 and would strongly advise the plan to others, as we never lost a chick since. A six-feet fence 

 of netting is ample, \\\\\\ a strip along the home side of any roof or wall from which a cat can jump ; 



