whiteybird
Songster
Hannah, I'm really sorry to hear about your birds, but also really happy for you that they made it out alive, if a little worse for the wear! I am pretty new to chicken raising also, and unfortunately have had some terrible experiences with several predators that didn't end up so well
On chicken doors: my boyfriend and I bought the 'Poultry Butler' chicken coop door, which also has a light sensor for dawn/dusk operation, because we were sick and tired of opening and closing the coop every morning and night. No offense to our birds, because I can totally understand why being cooped up (pun intended) is cause for a loud ruckus in the morning, but finding a way to let us sleep in and let them out as soon as they wished seemed like the perfect solution. NTM when we'd go on trips, it'd be a lot easier for someone to bird sit for us.
DONT BUY the Poultry Butler door. The first few times we used it it closed too early and we came home from a night out to find all six birds lined up on the ladder leading to the door and a bunch of raccoons on the ground around them eating their food. After a few more months of operation using a timer instead, and it stopped closing. Apparently with this door the cord gets twisted and, I am not joking, the instructions tell you to partially dismantle the door in order to unwind the string. Then it stopped moving the door altogether. We took it apart and found out the cord ripped off the motor. We fixed that, then the screw holding the motor to the door stripped. We fixed that. We sent an email through the website and still (8 months later) have yet to get any kind of acknowledgement. I wish we had found the ADOR model before we bought this one! 10xmama, thanks for that.
On raccoons: After our/the chickens' first encounter with coons we thought wed be ok, though we were still wary of them. We (the bf) shot a few which we (I) then buried, and we released several down the highway. We've read that the reason why you cant relocate them is a) it has to be far enough that they cant find their way back (a mile maybe?) and b) if you put them in another coons territory it's as good as dead anyway. I've decided that if they cause issues and you can't keep them out, shoot them. I am a huge animal lover - I swore I'd be a vet when I was little - but they have cost me food and messes and now chickens. Pets.
I would like to note that these raccoons were strong enough to tear apart the privacy lattice we use to enclose the bottom of our coop. I found the hollowed out corpses of our EE mix Eagle and our mutt Butters when I went to let everyone out this morning. I'm posting a new thread about it with a picture in a few.
So...don't use privacy lattice I guess. Definitely use hardware cloth, though welded wire (~2"x4" openings) works too. Good luck in the future!
On chicken doors: my boyfriend and I bought the 'Poultry Butler' chicken coop door, which also has a light sensor for dawn/dusk operation, because we were sick and tired of opening and closing the coop every morning and night. No offense to our birds, because I can totally understand why being cooped up (pun intended) is cause for a loud ruckus in the morning, but finding a way to let us sleep in and let them out as soon as they wished seemed like the perfect solution. NTM when we'd go on trips, it'd be a lot easier for someone to bird sit for us.
DONT BUY the Poultry Butler door. The first few times we used it it closed too early and we came home from a night out to find all six birds lined up on the ladder leading to the door and a bunch of raccoons on the ground around them eating their food. After a few more months of operation using a timer instead, and it stopped closing. Apparently with this door the cord gets twisted and, I am not joking, the instructions tell you to partially dismantle the door in order to unwind the string. Then it stopped moving the door altogether. We took it apart and found out the cord ripped off the motor. We fixed that, then the screw holding the motor to the door stripped. We fixed that. We sent an email through the website and still (8 months later) have yet to get any kind of acknowledgement. I wish we had found the ADOR model before we bought this one! 10xmama, thanks for that.
On raccoons: After our/the chickens' first encounter with coons we thought wed be ok, though we were still wary of them. We (the bf) shot a few which we (I) then buried, and we released several down the highway. We've read that the reason why you cant relocate them is a) it has to be far enough that they cant find their way back (a mile maybe?) and b) if you put them in another coons territory it's as good as dead anyway. I've decided that if they cause issues and you can't keep them out, shoot them. I am a huge animal lover - I swore I'd be a vet when I was little - but they have cost me food and messes and now chickens. Pets.
I would like to note that these raccoons were strong enough to tear apart the privacy lattice we use to enclose the bottom of our coop. I found the hollowed out corpses of our EE mix Eagle and our mutt Butters when I went to let everyone out this morning. I'm posting a new thread about it with a picture in a few.
So...don't use privacy lattice I guess. Definitely use hardware cloth, though welded wire (~2"x4" openings) works too. Good luck in the future!