The “Chicken Coop” Defender. Another rifle debate.

Between the 22 Mag and the 9 mm I would prefer the 9 mm even if I had to bend down to pick up brass. Hitting small, fast moving animals at 50 yards requires good shooting skills and in this situation I believe good shooting is more important than caliber. I like the 22 Mag but the high price per round has always discouraged me from having one. A 9 mm carbine is a nice gun for many uses, accurate at 50 yards and can be hand loaded for inexpensive regular practice.

Personally my choice for this situation is an accurate 22 LR semi auto rifle. 22 LR allows frequent practice with cheap factory ammo and is capable of killing a chicken coup predator like a fox, raccoon, skunk or coyote at 50 yards. A semi auto would also offer the best opportunity for quick followup hits. I might also add a low power scope sight like a 1.5X or 2.5X.

Remington1911 said:

Air rifles are great for smaller mammals and birds, but when you get to something the size of a coyote, I think the minimum I would think about is a 30, and while they do make 30 brake barrels, I doubt they are fun to cock and easy to shoot, so that would head you in the direction of PCP, and there is a great deal of expense going that way. Someone might or might not want to go down that road, but it is going to have to be done with PCP.

I use a old pumper for starlings, DRT. and no damage to buildings or equipment.

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I don't like crows or starlings either. Crows have a way of passing down legends to their young. They just don't hang around here anymore and haven't for many moons, ever since the Lost Lake massacre.

KansasTrapper77 said:

Is it a fine if they’re killing livestock?

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Yep. Federal law says nothing about livestock.

https://www.star-telegram.com/news/nation-world/national/article240831931.html

KansasTrapper77 said:

Is it a fine if they’re killing livestock?

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I will try and make it clear , there is no circumstance under which it is legal under Federal laws to kill a raptor, bird of prey, owl, hawk, falcon, eagle, condor or anything else of such ilk. I suppose if they are carrying away your children the fine would be worth undertaking the risk. Mess with my dog, if I had a dog still, and me and Uncle Sam might have a disagreement, but livestock, no.

CoalTrain49 said:

I don't like crows or starlings either. Crows have a way of passing down legends to their young. They just don't hang around here anymore and haven't for many moons, ever since the Lost Lake massacre.

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I have noted the same thing. And they know how far you can get at them too. And they have a lookout you can be sure.

3C

Considering your price range and effectiveness, I won't quibble with other people's comments, but I would have you think seriously about a 17 HMR. .22 mag ammo is non-existent right now. 17 HMR with Hornady Vmax bullets would be a better choice especially on coyote. Good up to 200 meters, 245 ft/pd. of energy, high BC. and a great mushrooming bullet.

Both, 22 mag for the chickens, and the 9mm because you want it.

Its a 50 yard shot at a pest, so I guess whichever one you would like to own more. I sure wouldn't buy a $600 rifle to kill pests. I would probably just use my shotgun with my turkey choke in it and a turkey load (I already own all of this for turkeys). The bigger question for me would be how are you going to identify and accurately engage whatever it is you are defending those birds from, since this sort of thing generally happens at night. Unless you are going to spend big $ on night vision or thermal capability to kill these nuisance critters, I'd be more concerned with the illumination than the lead slinger.

JShirley said:

LEPs will throw a coherent beam to 800 meters or more. I have one on a scoped AR.

View attachment 1080009

This Odin Mini will throw well past 200M, for less than $150, including mount.

Even this little PL-2 will throw 100 meters, for less than $100. I have one on my home defense handgun.

I had (expensive, admittedly) lights that would throw over 300 meters 16 years ago. The same performance can now be had in a light 1/3 the size and cost. No NODs or thermal required.

John

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Just to add to this, there are a variety of red and green LED lights as well that can throw plenty far to identify and are also less likely to spook the animals in question in case that is a concern.

I found a cheap used 22Mag for my bro-in-law who had an infestation of coons and coyotes attacking his chickens. He is not a shooter, but bought it, practiced a bit, and then over a two-week period proceeded to kill 14 coons and one coyote. Yep...the 22 mag will do the job.

For me, the chicken house rifle and the ranch rifle that might be used for coyotes out to 200yds are two different tools for two different jobs. Think DMR vs CQB. I would not use a shotgun or any centerfire for this purpose for two reasons. One, they are far too destructive to whatever they hit at close range. We're talking about operating in close proximity to, or even inside your chicken house. Don't want to go blasting the hell out of everything in sight only to have to repair it in the morning. Two, noise. For me, this is about reacting quickly to something happening now. So donning hearing protection before going into action is an unnecessary complication. This is where the .22LR shines. I never shoot the cartridge at the range without earpro unless shooting suppressed but a few shots won't deafen you. Don't want to try that with a 12ga or a 5.56 AR within the confines of a chicken house. Not to mention the dust it's going to kick up. Yes, I've killed possums and coons inside the chicken house, caught in the act of murdering my ladies.

I think the rimfire magnums are viable of you use frangible ammo. There is increased noise but they're also much more destructive to those pests. I just wish there was a good semi-auto .22Mag platform available that would be adaptable to the purpose. If it took Ruger mags, they do have a good 15rd version.

CoalTrain49 said:

I don't like crows or starlings either. Crows have a way of passing down legends to their young. They just don't hang around here anymore and haven't for many moons, ever since the Lost Lake massacre.

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I've always heard it said that crows are the most intelligent bird on the continent and can tell the difference between a farmer with a shovel and a jackwagon like me with a rifle. I believe it. They will learn to watch the windows of a house 200yds away.

FL-NC said:

Its a 50 yard shot at a pest, so I guess whichever one you would like to own more. I sure wouldn't buy a $600 rifle to kill pests. I would probably just use my shotgun with my turkey choke in it and a turkey load (I already own all of this for turkeys). The bigger question for me would be how are you going to identify and accurately engage whatever it is you are defending those birds from, since this sort of thing generally happens at night. Unless you are going to spend big $ on night vision or thermal capability to kill these nuisance critters, I'd be more concerned with the illumination than the lead slinger.

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It needs a mounted light. I struggled for years trying to hold a flashlight with a regular type scoped rifle. Monkeys and footballs. IMHO, it also needs a night-friendly sighting apparatus and there's nothing better than a red dot. You can get a perfectly serviceable light for $100. It's going to be difficult to get a readily-accessible weaponlight on that long turkey gun. Not only to be able to operate it but to get it out there far enough to avoid a huge barrel shadow.

My dad's chicken coop protector was an old 12ga single shot...a Sears shotgun I think. I'll never forget the morning my brother and I woke up to see a stray dog eating our young chickens. We woke up my dad. He got up, slipped on his slippers, grabbed the shotgun while my mom rounded up a shell. Then here goes dad walking across the lawn wearing only his slippers and drooping tidy-whities. The dog began growling and snapping as it raced around the pen looking for an escape. On the 2nd time around it caught the full choked 12ga load in the head and dropped without a wiggle.

German shepherds > guns for protecting chickens.

Just make sure the top of their pen/run is covered, hawks and owls are fast and undeterred by dogs. We've lost zero chickens to 4 legged predators, but several to raptors before we put polymer deer fence over the entire top.

MachIVshooter said:

German shepherds > guns for protecting chickens.

Just make sure the top of their pen/run is covered, hawks and owls are fast and undeterred by dogs. We've lost zero chickens to 4 legged predators, but several to raptors before we put polymer deer fence over the entire top.

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My neighbor had owl and eagle predation in his pen. He eventually netted the entire pen with some type of polymer netting. Eagles got caught in the netting for awhile until they figured it out. Eagles have a hard time with dense canopy so my neighbors chickens hang in my yard. Barred owls and Cooper's Hawks hunt during the day so chicks and small chickens outside the pen have a high mortality rate. Almost unavoidable with free range chickens. I would never try free range here but some people do it. When I was a kid growing up on a farm, the idea of free range chickens would have got some laughs. Maybe chickens have evolved in 60 years.

i have had exactly the same 50 yard to chicken coop kin a safe direction shot you have for last 35 yeas. used to have goat and sheep there too now 10 years gone. lessons learned was have a decent lower powered scope of around 2 to 4 power with an easy to find aiming point, todays flashlights make this necessity much easier. I use a 600 lumin Olight Baldour with a green lazer which is about $130 and has a great QD rail system The Sreamlight TRL series is also good. .Id get the Ruger 9mm Carbine. It will do all you want to 50 yards or so aand is no louder than a .22wmrf . I you want a .22 MRF then I would get the Semi Auto Savage A22 .22MRF 10 shot Semi equipped as I said . A great gun and CCI has developed great ammo especially for it which is around at $25 a box . It would be ideal for pests as you may face , it is roller locked and well made and extremely accurate giving you at least double the range .
https://www.gunbroker.com/item/933565804

JShirley said:

LEPs will throw a coherent beam to 800 meters or more. I have one on a scoped AR.

View attachment 1080009

This Odin Mini will throw well past 200M, for less than $150, including mount.

Even this little PL-2 will throw 100 meters, for less than $100. I have one on my home defense handgun.

I had (expensive, admittedly) lights that would throw over 300 meters 16 years ago. The same performance can now be had in a light 1/3 the size and cost. No NODs or thermal required.

John

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Those sound like good solutions to the darkness problem, if it were my problem. Or whatever motion activated light I could put on the outside of the coop

Gordon said:

i have had exactly the same 50 yard to chicken coop kin a safe direction shot you have for last 35 yeas. used to have goat and sheep there too now 10 years gone. lessons learned was have a decent lower powered scope of around 2 to 4 power with an easy to find aiming point, todays flashlights make this necessity much easier. I use a 600 lumin Olight Baldour with a green lazer which is about $130 and has a great QD rail system The Sreamlight TRL series is also good. .Id get the Ruger 9mm Carbine. It will do all you want to 50 yards or so aand is no louder than a .22wmrf . I you want a .22 MRF then I would get the Semi Auto Savage A22 .22MRF 10 shot Semi equipped as I said . A great gun and CCI has developed great ammo especially for it which is around at $25 a box . It would be ideal for pests as you may face , it is roller locked and well made and extremely accurate giving you at least double the range .
https://www.gunbroker.com/item/933565804

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I have this rifle in the .17HMR. It is deadly accurate but not quite on par with my Marlin 17 HMR (which is the most accurate RF rifle I have ever encountered) stainless bolt rifle. But funner to shoot.

3C

MachIVshooter said:

German shepherds > guns for protecting chickens.

Just make sure the top of their pen/run is covered, hawks and owls are fast and undeterred by dogs. We've lost zero chickens to 4 legged predators, but several to raptors before we put polymer deer fence over the entire top.

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I tried for about 15yrs to build a coon/possum proof chicken pen. Never quite got there. They always find a way in, especially coons. I've had them tear through rusty chicken wire. Dogs are probably a good solution for a lot of it, if that's your thing. It ain't mine. Been happily dog and chicken free for about 11yrs now.

3Crows said:

I will try and make it clear , there is no circumstance under which it is legal under Federal laws to kill a raptor, bird of prey, owl, hawk, falcon, eagle, condor or anything else of such ilk. I suppose if they are carrying away your children the fine would be worth undertaking the risk. Mess with my dog, if I had a dog still, and me and Uncle Sam might have a disagreement, but livestock, no.



I have noted the same thing. And they know how far you can get at them too. And they have a lookout you can be sure.

3C

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Correct, know a guy that did rabbits, and he killed hawks and eagles, did not end well......but like most things .gov, it does take some time.

I don't debate that a 22 can kill a coyote, I doubt anyone will debate that 22m will kill a moose. In my book it is just too marginal.

I used to buy chickens, ducks, geese from a guy who raised fowl for income. I would stop by his place on the way to my weekly staff conference in another county. On the return drive I would pick up the birds I ordered, all processed and ready for the oven. On one such occasion, I saw a pile of dead raptors....4-5 of them. I asked about them and he tells me he sets traps on the top of utility poles, catches them, and destroys them. I asked if he was concerned about getting in trouble. He said "a game warden told me he didn't care because there are too many of the damned things anyway and I'm getting tired of feeding them."

I use a 38spl 1866 carbine as my day-time chicken defender at distances under 50 yards; anything over that I use one of the deer rifles. For night work, I use an Original Mountain Cur and a cut-down Winchester 1897 with screw-in chokes, loaded with #2 goose loads. Of course, those are for the four-legged predators; for the winged vermin I like either my 17hmr, 222 Rem, or 243 Win, depending on the distance required.

RE: gov't protection of raptors, etc. That reminded me of a little story. Some years ago, an old gentleman had a hawk getting his chickens. He solved his problem himself, as that generation was wont to do, but he was seen and reported by his "furriner" neighbor. When the game warden went to speak to him, he quickly informed the Squirrel Cops that "it's my land, and until you start paying the taxes on it I reckon I'll take care of my own problems. Now get the hell off it." Funnily enough, that was the end of it.

Mac

It'll be louder for sure. Having just purchased hearing aids and being scolded by the audiologist, I'd say use protection. BTW, I've never used protection except at the rifle range and when shooting sporting clays. Maybe paying for that now. Still, I will never wear hearing protection when hunting squirrels with a .22.