My suggestions is, put the nest boxes inside of the cope and close the area where they were removed from. Anything outside of the cope can and will be destroyed, eventually. Hope this helps.Today, at about 8:40 PM, we heard our dog Shelby (who is tied at her doghouse when we can’t supervise her off leash, she isn’t fully trusted with chickens and can’t be indoors. She has been outdoors her whole life.) barking, and when I went out to look from the window, she was barking towards the coop, I’ve never seen her bark in that direction before, so I got little worried. I always go and see what’s going on whenever she barks but she does that often so I wasn’t really expecting anything. I went outside just in case and there was a pile of feathers right below the nesting box. Our broody, Queen, got caught. We have never had a coop break in so I was really in shock. I looked around, saw nothing moving. At first I thought it could’ve been a raccoon but while were installing new protection on the nesting box (pieces of wood drilled to prevent the box from opening), we saw a black bear very close to the coop. Probably coming back for more…we tried to scare it with an air horn and rocks but it didn’t move. Our very powerful flashlight on flash mode made it leave. We now have pieces of wood preventing the nesting box from opening from above, a outdoor light on, and a ultrasound and flashing lights alarm. Is there anything else we should do? Bears are so strong so it could probably destroy the whole coop if it wanted. I heard vinegar and pepper can discourage them so I want to try spraying that around the box. We already lost 3 hens this year (including the one from tonight, the 2 others were from coyotes) and I really don’t want to lose any more.Any ideas? Tips? Anything?
First picture is the muddy marks it left when opening it.
Second is what it looked like before it arrived (I put rocks on top but clearly doesn’t work…)
Third is the bear
And the last one is what the coop looks like
