We have chickens too, around 25 free range + a pony + a few ducks, and had issues with dogs and wild coyotes. I think harming the animal is a bit inhumane but I totally understand where you are coming from. Remember you are a guest in their space.

Here are some suggestions that have worked for our farm:

1. Pee around the coop. Enough said.

2. Get a puppy and train him. We have an aussie that does a great job, but there are other breeds that make even better farm dogs.

3. Train the chickens to go back into the barn when the sun goes down. This isn't very hard and most of the time they will do it themselves.

4. Motion sensor and/or electric fence on a timer.

5. Be aware; this is by far the hardest thing.

Our first year we lost 10 chickens. If that's not motivation enough to do something, I don't know what is but I would never hurt another animal for doing what they do naturally.

Our chickens aren't exactly free-range, but they have a large fenced-in area. The fence is electric, and the chickens do go in at night. But when a cat walks by and scares them, they have a tendency to get outside the fence and not know how. And outside the fence... some of the cats would be interested in getting them. And since a big siamese-like cat comes around that will hunt ground hogs, a chicken isn't such an intimidating target.

While I understand that cats are born predators, I can't afford to lose chickens. I wouldn't kill them because they do keep pests down and may belong to someone, but I do want to scare them away from the coop.

Oh yeah, I understand that. We all face different challenges when raising animals. I was just spitballing at 'cha.

I thought about going that direction, but was concerned the birds might eat the pellets.

Yeah, my sister pointed that out to me. It's a fairly serious concern. (Coincidentally, that's probably where the term "bird brained" came from...)