A latch mystery

[mowin]

Those little pea sized brains had you fooled for a while.

 

[NorthwoodsChick]

Oh those boys! Remind them that it’s October, not April fool’s day.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Oh those boys! Remind them that it’s October, not April fool’s day.

Every day is some kind of fool's day with these two stomping about.

I should've known that I was going to be in for some fun when my hen that can disassemble coffee thermoses produced not one, but two boys.

Maybe I should just install an extra barrel latch or something further up on the outside of the door. The carabiner is already starting to drive me a bit nuts since it's a bit too fiddly to remove easily with gloves on.

 

[NorthwoodsChick]

Every day is some kind of fool's day with these two stomping about.
View attachment 3295452
I should've known that I was going to be in for some fun when my hen that can disassemble coffee thermoses produced not one, but two boys.

Maybe I should just install an extra barrel latch or something further up on the outside of the door. The carabiner is already starting to drive me a bit nuts since it's a bit too fiddly to remove easily with gloves on.

they are beautiful!

 

[DonyaQuick]

Well this is just going to be my life now:

Although I guess technically the reverse of that today. My big black & white speckled boy Monster got fed up with his smaller sisters stepping on him and pulling his tail every couple of minutes (they are really not nice to him lol), so he very deliberately went about shutting the little door to between my run halves to lock them in the other half. The door naturally swings open from gravity, so shutting it is non-trivial for a chicken. Wish I'd gotten that on video. Now I'm going to have to carabiner the little door OPEN during the day and carabiner the big door CLOSED. I guess I've just managed to breed evil geniuses this year.

Unfortunately I can't find anything except for carabiner-type things to use on the big green metal door that has the gravity-based latch. Everything I'm turning up that fits on round posts is just another type of gravity-based lock or one that locks automatically in a way that would trap me inside. Does anyone know of something more like a barrel latch that is meant to go on round posts?

 

[Matejka]

Hmmm....you may be overthinking this.
Does the post have chicken wire/hardwarecloth/fencing attached to it? I have a door that blocks access to run. I have a simple cup hook screwed to outside of door. When closed a loop of chain is around hook. When open I hook it on the fence wire. I'll get pics tomorrow if the explanation isn't clear.
Or wrap a chain around post leave loose and hook door to chain

 

[DonyaQuick]

Hmmm....you may be overthinking this.
Does the post have chicken wire/hardwarecloth/fencing attached to it? I have a door that blocks access to run. I have a simple cup hook screwed to outside of door. When closed a loop of chain is around hook. When open I hook it on the fence wire. I'll get pics tomorrow if the explanation isn't clear.
Or wrap a chain around post leave loose and hook door to chain

I ended up just using the carabiner and dealing with the nuisance of trying to open it one-handed sometimes. My cockerel called Monster will reach round and try to open hook-type latches unless he's blocked by 1/2in HWC (it's more like 1.5in gaps for the main gate latch in question that he kept opening). He actually caught his neck in the door once from fiddling with the gravity latch, since apparently his neck fits through the closed gap but not his head unless the door is ajar, and he somehow opened it, popped his head through, and closed it on himself. Fortunately I was only about 10ft away when he did it (although I still didn't see HOW he did it) and he's completely fine, but after that incident I decided to just stick to carabiners since I know they are Monster-proof and I don't want to add another interesting gadget that might draw his attention back up there again. I wouldn't want to risk trying another type of latch that doesn't fundamentally require an opposable thumb to open it.