[evie2]

What about marking them the way racing pigeons are, under the wing?

[pigeonpie]

One of my friend's dogs kept taking himself off for walks and losing his collar so after being complained at by the dog warden / police he wrote his mobile number along the side of the dog in the marking spray they use for marking livestock.

http://www.countrywidefarmers.co.uk/pws/ProductDetails.ice?ProductID=1251

It would think it was safe to be preened by the chickens as it is used on cattle going to market who would be able to reach the marked site with tongue.

[penninehillbilly]

So sorry to hear of this
I know how you feel, my first hens, RIR went the same way
I can still remember the feeling in my stomach when I saw the hut door open.
You can buy battery operated shed alarms. is there anybody living nearby who would hear an alarm? the noise itself would probably scare them away (might not leave your hens very happy though 

[wolverine]

I've just worken on a building site and the guy who runs the site has an alarm that has a magnet or something on the door to the stores and when the door is open an alarm goes off and it rings his mobile phone !!!! How cool is that you would need a power supply though

[orchardlady]

We live and run our family business in  rural locations. We have a village garage. My husband say's it's amazing how often he has customers making an enquiry, say about a service and he notices that their eyes are everywhere. He's even hooked people out of our back car park that's private. He always takes their reg no to. We have cctv cameras everywhere and unless it's nailed down is put away at night. We used to have lovely hanging baskets each summer but one day some little toe rag decided that he was going to take the one basket that wasn't covered by the cameras on a blank exterior wall. That was such a clear indication that thieves are very very observant. Be vigilant. look out for strange cars slowing near your paddock, take a note of registation numbers, don't tell people where you keep your hens etc.

[joyfull]

I do like orchardlady and take a note of registrations (we get people wanting to know if we have any scrap), when they ask why I am writing down their reg I always inform them that I do this for all visitors calling to our place uninvited this way I can hand it to the police should anything go missing. I usually have to shout this over the sound of 2 very large dogs barking.