Raccoon - Chicken Predators - How To Protect Your Chickens From Coons

Excellent article. Sadly, I am reading it AFTER I lost more than half my flock this summer to one young raccoon. At least, that's all I was able to trap. I learned a lot about tightening up the coop (ended up building a coop within a pole barn rather than just letting them live in the pole barn). I will invest in the hardware cloth as right now I just used chicken fencing in the upper third of my coop.

Great information. I would add, however, that in my experience, flashing lights and noise have done absolutely nothing to deter the nightly visits I get from the racoons. Fortunately, I built my coop like Fort Knox, so the only animal that could get in would be a bear.

In any event, they are worthy of respect, and we all need to be mindful of their craftiness.

This is a comprehensive and easy to understand article about raccoons and how to keep them away from chickens.

I appreciate the mention of them being active in daylight, as I've dealt with a raccoon visit in the middle of the day. It didn't attack any of my birds, thankfully, as I had them closed up in their run. It is definitely a good thing to be aware that their behavior may not always follow the typical pattern.

Thank you for sharing!

Just curious I started to read the article about racoons (wasbeer in Dutch). Thought: "happy we don't have them around here" .

But Germany is close and digging the internet I found they are a threat in the nearby future here as wel.
Thanks for the warning and info.

Yup! I like this article too!

Excellent article! I like the paw print images used to help people identify them.

Nice read for getting to know about raccoons. Good track picture.

Raccoons are one of the toughest chicken predators to deal with. This article has good details about most of the problems they cause, and how to prevent them. Everyone who keeps chickens in raccoon country would do well to read this article, and to follow the advice in it.

Well Written article about raccoons and poutry

Hardware cloth and tamper resistant latches are first and foremost!