Only as Strong as the Weakest Point

[tiffanyh]

Just a friendly reminder......

When building your coops and runs, keep predator proofing at the absolute front of your mind. You can read on here pretty much daily about people loosing their beloved birds to predators. I dont want this to be a predator bashing post, but a reminder that your coop is only as strong as your weakest point and predators need to eat something. Please learn from others mistakes and research what people are doing that has worked to keep their pens safe. I LOVE looking at people pens and coops (its like HGTV for the chicken addict), but I have noticed over the last few months some things that worry me.

What I have learned:

Hardware cloth is the closest to a sure thing in terms of wire! Chain link and welded wire leave plenty of room for predators to reach through or slither or sneak in. Or for your flock to reach their heads out making them susceptible.

When in doubt, shut the flock in at night (if possible). I use chain link, therefore in order to not loose my birds to predators at night, I shut them in their coop and lock it.

Predators will dig or climb when hungry. Be sure to think of this in your design. Some predators come from above.

When in doubt, overdo it! If I think there may even be a slight weak point, I reinforce it so I can sleep well at night....

What have you all learned from your predator proofing that you would like to pass along???? Others can learn from our mistakes.....

 

[crazyhen]

Preditors like to dig too. I have dirt floors but put hardware cloth down and affixed to the wall edges to prevent them from digging under. I add soil on top of this inside. I put my hens in at night. Gloria jean

 

[tiffanyh]

Thanks gloria.

 

[DeerFangRanch]

We felt very secure in our over-engineered/over-built coop & run. Have alot of predictors. Decided that the only thing that could get in (basically by destroying the coop) was a bear. Guess what - we have bears!!!!

Decided rather than have to do a repair after a "bear attack" we were better off preventing it - so we added a perimeter, three strand electric fence. Guess what we caught on our game camera shortly after - yup, a bear. . . .

We also have a baby monitor inside the coop - will let us hear if there is a problem day or night and if power goes down to that circuit (which includes the electric fence) we get static on the monitor which alerts us to an electrical problem...

 

[Violet22]

I never thought of a baby monitor............that's a great idea, I am going to see if I can find one with a long enough range. This is a good thread, thanks!

 

[PippyChicken]

 

[tiffanyh]

I cant even imagine having to worry about bears!

 

[patandchickens]

Good idea for a thread!

My additions would be:

1) raccoons can climb and unlatch a lot more than you think they can.

2) predators are quite a lot stronger than most people give credit for.

3) most "predatorproof" runs actually aren't. Thus, no matter how secure you think your run is, it is awfully smart to shut the birds in at night. Coops are much easier to predatorproof; plus, "out of sight out of mind".

4) in a large run, doing the whole thing in hardwarecloth is not really much of an improvement over doing it all in 1x1, 1x2, 2x4 or heavy chainlink and then adding smaller mesh inside the bottom 2-3'. Of course the hens will have to be locked in the coop at night but they should be even with all-hardwarecloth (there are always gaps, or gaps form...)


Pat

 

[tiffanyh]

Thanks patandchickens.

I havent dealt with the unlatching thing so I forgot about that! Predators are sneaky--they have to be to survive and eat!

It seems with bears, the electric fence is the only way to go???

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Pretty much. Certainly the most economical (it is *possible* to build bearproof buildings, but not reasonable for a chicken coop

)

Has to be a good stiffly-charged fence for bears, though, and preferably not too close to the coop either.


Pat