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CHAPTER XV. 
ENEMIES 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, forgetting 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. For a few days a run in front of the coop, entirely 
covered with netting, will effectually protect them; 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 
Fir* ^2. 
fence about six feet high, made of netting, which very few cats will attempt to scale. In our own 
case we once 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 found the animals completely baffled ; they walked along the roof and looked 
through the netting, but would not face the climb and consequent jump which they must overcome 
before they could e^nter the run. We had 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 after. A six-feet fence 
of netting is ample, with a strip along the home side of any roof or wall from which a cat can jump ; 
