Bear in Coop

[fiddlebanshee]

I have the electric netting. After getting shocked for about 4 weeks while going in and out I finally bit the bullet and built a gate. It's a simple picket gate, and I connected strands of the same wiring as is in the electronet (the netting comes with replacement strands) to the electronet and then through isolators across the fence, in three rows. So far so good. Nothing has tried to get into the netting or the coop. I don't know if the bear has been back, if he was, we didn't notice it. Make sure you get an adequate charger. The fence needs at minimum 6000 volts to be effective against bears.

 

[cafarmgirl]

We're all pretty good about our trash. Mine never even goes outside, it goes straight away when it is filled. The bear couldn't care less about my compost. The bear has broken off the stink pipe on my neighbors septic... I don't think she can make her septic go away. It's clearly a problem bear, we've taken the reasonable steps.

I do have some resources, I am just trying to choose the best possible way to use them to rid myself of the problem short of keeping my chickens in the coop, pop door closed 24/7.

I like the idea of electrified netting for the run, and might take that plunge as another poster suggested. I just need to figure out some logistics like how us "people" can enter then run through the electric netting (I haven't seen a good gate option), and also how to run it through uneven woodland as opposed to flat fields like I've seen in most pictures of the netting. Those logistics may take another post.

Below is my coop. The top of the ladder through the pop door is how the bear got in, believe it or not.

What I have seen people do and what I've done myself in the past is drive some T stakes into the ground around your entire coop/run, several feet out and run your hot wire or netting on those. Not expensive and not hard to do at all. Make yourself a little gate, they make ends for the wire with hooks for just that purpose. Plus it will keep the bear off of and away from the coop/run altogether. That is probably going to be much easier and faster then trying to string hot wire or electric netting directly on your setup the way it is right now. Either way, electric fence is the only way your going to keep bears out of your coop. Make sure you have a strong enough charger, it will take more then a bee sting to impress him.