Anyone who has lost a chicken to a Coon or Possum

[citrusdreams]

Quote:
A plywood roof will definitely keep the owls and hawks out

As to the wire, it depends on the dog. I've read posts in this section about dogs ripping apart a henhouse made out of wood, and there's a post in this section right now about a dog breaking out of his house, and getting loose from a chain. A determined predator will try anything. I have chainlink only and nothing's got in (knock on wood).

Is the 19 gauge wire all you're using? or are you using it to augment another fence such as chainlink? I don't know anyone who just uses welded wire so I'm sure someone else will pipe up. I wish I could remember what I used to augment some cattle panel for another area, but I know it wouldn't hold up against a dog. It's just there so my dogs can't stick their heads though the cattle panel squares.

I remember putting together our henhouse and coop. How exciting for you!

 

[Bizzybirdy]

I have 5' high chain link with sheet metal around the ouside bottom 2' and a hot wire outside of that. No problems. Before that had a racoon pull the wing of a hen through the chain link and then got her head and decapitated her.

So awful!

 

[chookchick]

I think the best idea is a combo--use the smaller cloth (like 1/2" hardware cloth) inside of heavier (2 by 4 or 1 by 2) welded wire or chain link. You only need to run the smaller wire up as far as a animal would grab or bite into, like 2'. I also am nervous about hardware cloth holding up, so I always back it up. Still a good idea to lock them in a coop at night. Haven't lost anything yet!

 

[citrusdreams]

Quote:
I'm surprised that deters them. Instead of sleeping in the henhouse with everyone else, some of my chickens roost on the top of the chain link when the weather is nice. So if a chicken is too close to the edge, wouldn't the raccoon just climb up the chainlink and grab it from whereever?

I'm always impressed that reinforcing the bottom and using hot wire works. I wouldn't have thought it would have worked....I haven't lost one to a predator in a long time while the chickens were confined to the pen at night (and that was a raccoon pulling up the netting a few years ago), but I always worry about those ones that roost on the top of the chainlink at night. I guess they're okay though. Maybe I don't have nightime visitors at all because my dogs give them bleeding ears and headaches with their big ruckus

I know my ears bleed

 

[silkiechicken]

Once when I was new to the chicken thing the coon tore 1x1 chicken wire off a tractor to get in, another time they dug under the hutch, and the "best" was when a family of coons learned how to open the latch to the coop....

 

[silkiechick05]

I think what i am going to do is have 1" by 1/2" for strength and then pair that up with 1/2" by 1/2" for security

 

[4 Love of Baby Chickens]

They got into my coop through the loft above and through the chicken wire. I lost over 20 chickens last summer. I HATE coons SO bad!!!!

Okay now that I got that out of my system. I solved that problem by sticking tires in the loft and haven't had a problem since except where that big black snake in the barn got one of my EE x RIR chicks and I've lost 2 chicks. They were pretty weak to start out with.

 

[silkiechick05]

wow that sounds terrible!
so the coons climbed in from the top?

 

[Ken H]

I have a predater load...It's a .22 cal. high powered air gun charged to 3,000psi pressure.