I have most or all of the suggestions listed above yet haven't had problems in so long that I had gotten complacent. My henhouse has an attached 12x18 foot enclosure made from chicken wire for when they aren't free ranging, when I built it I dumped rocks picked from my garden all around the perimeter to discourage tunneling under. My meat birds were in a dog kennel with chicken wire over the top; it turns out that the chicken wire comes right apart with little effort by a predator. Both enclosures are about 1/4 mile up the road from my house, whereas my previously mentioned turkeys were right outside the house and I heard the little bugger reach through the 2x4 inch wire to steal the birds.
New defenses include the following;
All living birds are in the chicken coop for now. I purchased a Duke's dog proof and bag of marshmallows for bait. (If I don't eat them all first.)
It's been a long time since I've laid steel, but right now I have a couple of 1 3/4 Victors derusting in wood ashes. Tomorrow I will dip them, and set them in the dog kennel where I've been leaving a little chicken feed to keep them coming back. My game camera shows two coons in that locale.
my .22 magnum revolver is loaded and easily accessible, I go for nightly rides at the time when they have been on the trail cam.
I'm tapping into the 12 volt fence charger which runs my pig pen fencing. Hopefully it's got enough juice to run both, as the last thing I need is for my pigs to get out.
Next year I have plans to build a coop nearer to the house, so that I can use my 120 volt fence charger.
Each my my herding dogs (minus Willy) has killed one chicken. They were taught right then - that was a really bad idea and pissed off the big dog. Herding dogs are pack animals and don't like to be "in the dog house". Willy and the cats were a bigger challenge. He, along with every other animal that's encountered a cat in full claws mode leaves em alone, but he loves to chase critters and most cats will run first. I clocked him at 33 mph. That's a hundred pounds in flight. He can clear a four foot fence.
My lab also learned after killing his first chicken that it wasn't a good idea. He likes to "play" with them though, and helps me track new birds down until they learn to return to the coop at the end of the day. Once I lost a hen and all that I found was a pile of feathers; I assume that it was a hawk because Ruger kept going to the feathers, circling around, and returning to the feathers again, obviously confused where it went.
