Turner_Family_Flock
Chirping
- May 16, 2020
- 39
- 89
- 67
This morning when I let my chickens out into their run, I noticed something very peculiar about the door of their coop.
The wire that covered the door into my coop on the bottom section was bent inwards
The section right beside the doorframe had a similar problem, but it wasn't broken open like the wire on the door.
We expressed concern about a cat who came around when the chickens first entered their coop a few weeks ago.
Since then, we have also seen our neighbor's cat stalking our birds from atop the neighbor's roof
We've been told not to worry about cats. That a chicken can defend itself easily from a cat- who should get scared off when a hen flaps her wings and yells.
However, this isn't a case of "is a cat going to attack our birds?" This is a case of "is a cat going to break open our coop and expose our chickens to potentially more dangerous predators?"
We're also thinking it could have been a raccoon, because there were no scratch marks on the wood where a cat might've tried to scrape it's way in- AND because all of the cats that live around our house (we have a large ammount of stray and outdoor cats) are skinny, and a cat easily could have slipped through the opening made in the coop (though it likely would have gotten stuck trying to escape when the hens woke up and scared the cat)
We HAVE seen raccoons in our area, and we know from experience that the little monsters are smart enough to not only steal and open our bag of dog food when we're camping, but smart enough to mess with the locks on our coop (the only raccoon proof lock we actually have on the cage is in the back, where we would open up to the nesting boxes to collect eggs)
We also noticed that the bottom latch for the door to the coop was open, and we lock every lock on the coop at night. It is not a raccoon proof lock, it's a regular sliding lock.
How can we prevent future break-in attempts? The wire on the edges of the coop have proven to be somewhat weak, is there any way we can reinforce the edges to prevent another animal from breaking it open? And for that matter, is there any way we can deter cats and raccoons from coming near the coop in the first place, REGARDLESS of whether or not they might actually attack our birds? Our predator light has clearly not stopped all animals from breaking into the yard, though we think that the predator light finally going off might have been what saved our birds from a hungry intruder at the end of it all.
The wire that covered the door into my coop on the bottom section was bent inwards
The section right beside the doorframe had a similar problem, but it wasn't broken open like the wire on the door.
We expressed concern about a cat who came around when the chickens first entered their coop a few weeks ago.
Since then, we have also seen our neighbor's cat stalking our birds from atop the neighbor's roof
We've been told not to worry about cats. That a chicken can defend itself easily from a cat- who should get scared off when a hen flaps her wings and yells.
However, this isn't a case of "is a cat going to attack our birds?" This is a case of "is a cat going to break open our coop and expose our chickens to potentially more dangerous predators?"
We're also thinking it could have been a raccoon, because there were no scratch marks on the wood where a cat might've tried to scrape it's way in- AND because all of the cats that live around our house (we have a large ammount of stray and outdoor cats) are skinny, and a cat easily could have slipped through the opening made in the coop (though it likely would have gotten stuck trying to escape when the hens woke up and scared the cat)
We HAVE seen raccoons in our area, and we know from experience that the little monsters are smart enough to not only steal and open our bag of dog food when we're camping, but smart enough to mess with the locks on our coop (the only raccoon proof lock we actually have on the cage is in the back, where we would open up to the nesting boxes to collect eggs)
We also noticed that the bottom latch for the door to the coop was open, and we lock every lock on the coop at night. It is not a raccoon proof lock, it's a regular sliding lock.
How can we prevent future break-in attempts? The wire on the edges of the coop have proven to be somewhat weak, is there any way we can reinforce the edges to prevent another animal from breaking it open? And for that matter, is there any way we can deter cats and raccoons from coming near the coop in the first place, REGARDLESS of whether or not they might actually attack our birds? Our predator light has clearly not stopped all animals from breaking into the yard, though we think that the predator light finally going off might have been what saved our birds from a hungry intruder at the end of it all.
