Please learn from our mistake - Raccoon Killed our chicken

[Eliz]

beaconite

I am sorry about your lost. :aww


I am considering 1/2" hardware cloth 100% around and above my run. Also I have been thinking about putting an electric fence around the outside of the run. Maybe at about 6 inches off the ground and then about a another foot above that.

I know I have got lots of coons around my house. I just don't know how far they will be willing to go to get my babies!

 

[truckerswife]

We live in suburbs too and have coons. A momma and 2 babies on porch just last night. I bring in pet food at night. I have seen them anywhere from 9:45 pm to 5 am.

Last year one coon did get through chicken wire to attack my muscovy duck (she had to be put down by the vet )
so we moved the girls into a wood coop , no more chicken wire.

I have a trap just haven't caught anything on the nights I did put it out. I think I should put it out again..soon.

Sorry, for your loss.

 

[BayCityBabe]

I would shoot. I mean, how would you really be caught?

 

[chickorama]

I'm so sorry about your chicken. We once got back from the grocery store in plain daylight, to find a skunk in our yard. We were lucky though, we got it out of the way before it did any harm to our feathered babies... So sorry about your chicken.

 

[morelcabin]

Quote:
Electric wire is definitely worth it! I have it. Run it about 3 inches from the bottom of the fence, then every four inches for about three rows...then another a little higher up and you won't have anything even try to get in there. My dog or the neighbors won't go anywhere near it after being zapped on the nose once or twice:>) I have never had problems with coons either and I know we have some around here

 

[FarmGirlNC]

Don't feel like this was your fault- many of us have lost birds this way. Predators are made to be predators. We are competing with them for a food source and sometimes we lose. It has been that way for thousands of years. If you have close neighbors shooting is not an option whether you get caught or not. Try some bright lights around the outside of the coop (I have one friend who uses only lights as a deterrent and has had good success). Then set the traps in the dark around the perimeter of the coop. Once it is in the trap you can drown th coon by submerging the whole trap. In my area rabies is a real danger in raccoons. So I don't handle the trap without disposable gloves and never put the raccoons in my vehicle.

 

[ninjapoodles]

Here's a shot of my daughter at the gate (what--you don't wear a wedding veil and tie-dye around the farm?) of our chicken yard, and you can see the very simple way we put up hot-wire. A strand close to the ground, a few inches above that, and another a few inches above that. There's also one that runs along the very top, but we don't have to undo that one to go inside.

We are LOUSY with predators, and lost 3 birds to raccoons before the hot-wire went up, and then the ONE night I forgot to close the gate after they went to bed, a fox got almost every single one. That was a hard lesson, but I haven't forgotten since then. Any time the gates have been shut and hot-wire engaged, we've not had any further breaches. And we have SEVERAL game-cam pictures of that fox, night after night, sniffing at this very gate. The hot-wire apparently does a good job.

In this one, the camera is facing the pen, with the gate on the right.

This was captured on the camera mounted on the fence-post. In other words, this is what you'd have seen if you'd been INSIDE the chicken-yard looking out.

(Ironically, despite all these photos, since getting a de-predation permit from the state Game & Fish Commission so we could legally dispatch this fellow, we have not seen hide nor hair of him!)

 

[SewingDiva]

I'm sorry too for your loss, but I'm really glad you got there in time. We also use carabiners and turn lock latches. We have a Playhouse coop, so there is a set of two on the run door, top and bottom, to prevent a racoon from racking the door out of shape by yanking on the bottom. And there is another carabiner/turn latch set on the nest box door.

I also put a simple hook-and-eye set inside the door, near the bottom of the frame, so prevent the chickens from pushing open the door and escaping while I'm in the run with them.

~Phyllis

 

[robleland]

Any thoughts if a plywood board with nails through it would prevent raccoons from walking around a cage?

 

[eggdd]

Quote:
what gage is good?