Hi, I am Very lucky that I have neighbors with a trained dog they keep at the bottom of their garden that is some sort of Fox deterrent barks every time anyone ventures down there ( they have about 20 chickens that FR all day, and have never had any problems. touch wood) They also have guinea fowl and two pigs- we are also rural so I am led to believe that the foxes are slightly less of a issue than the urban ones.
I have chatted with them and I am going to put my hen house near where they keep theirs and I am pretty sure this dog barking every time there is movement down the bottom of the garden should keep the foxes out, Rats well we have traps down as I have seen a few already, but I am waiting on a friend of a friend to bring his terrier down to do some ratting for a crate of beer, but we will be taking feed in every evening to deter rats. The cube will eventually be connected to a large covered WIR 6 X12FT with free range pop hole on concrete slabs so this should stop the rats getting in at night by tunneling under - this is still work in progress - probably complete by early September. Rats are going to be by far my biggest problem.
The cube (house will easily hold the chickens but may get an extra nest- they say you can get 6 heavy breeds in a cube (house) but I am only having two and the rest are mainly Hybrid with the exception of the araucana.
The run is probably 3 meters by 1.2m, but I have movable netting/fencing of 21m as I don't want all of my garden turned to mud and to keep the trampoline and kids play area poo free.
I am really chuffed to hear that you guys have not had any problems with not keeping them in for too long, I will def use the corn pot idea, and will speak to the breeder to see when they were last wormed. Thanks for the advice about the medicated pellets that will save me alot of headaches.
Just suddenly panicked seeing the run attached to the cube and it being far to small for more than a day or to at most, may use the chicken netting to extend the area for the first week before letting them completely out.
Thanks so much for the reassurance- Eeek can't wait- long time planning all of this!