Advice on roof (with pic)

[rehsanipoor]

I've read through a lot of posts but can't find our exact situation so I decided to ask for advice specific to our needs.

Our coop is secure and I'm "fairly" confident that at night my girls will be safe (in addition to improving locks we've covered the ground within the coop's run with h.c.) I am considering an automatic door to ensure they are locked up before it gets dark. My question relates to daytime in the run....

3/4 of the run will be roofed with polycarbonate panels, the perimeter is a combination of fencing beefed up with h.c. including 2-3 ft. aprons to discourage digging.

Our predators include foxes (which we see on our property often), cats, raccoons, and hawks (that I think are on the smaller size).

We are unsure how we want to cover the area of run that is not roofed with panels. I know all of these predators will be able to get to the top of the fence where we'll be attaching some type of protection.

Is chicken wire enough or do we need to do h.c.? Any other suggestions for what would work?

I've read that people have lost chickens to raccoons during the daytime. We've also seen foxes in our backyard in broad day light.

Here is a picture of what we have so far... sorry about the mess! The yellow lines and arrows show the area we need advice for.

 

[coach723]

Anything less than hardware cloth will not keep 4 legged predators out. Foxes and raccoons will just go up and over, and can tear through chicken wire. If you really want it secure I'd use hardware cloth and maybe extend the framing out to the end. You could also just extend the roof out that far, depends on what you want. Just make sure rain runoff is going to be directed away from the run so it doesn't flood in heavy or sustained rain. Honestly, when it comes to predator proofing, shortcuts will usually result in losses eventually.
I love my automatic door. I still check nightly, as failures can happen, but if you are running late it's awesome to know it's there when you aren't. Mine runs either on light sensor or timer, I use the timer, so have to adjust periodically for lengthening or shortening daylight hours, so no one gets locked out. I found the light sensor would close the door during bad, dark, thunderstorms.

 

[rehsanipoor]

Great advice @coach723 thank you. Can you tell me which door you have?

I wanted to leave part of the run open. So I think we'll just need to run hardware cloth over that area and add some rafters to support it.

 

[coach723]

I have this one:
http://www.poultrybutler.com/
I got the large door, and went with this one as it was made in the USA, parts are available as is support if needed. I've had mine almost 2 years and it's been great, zero regrets.