Can foxes lift a pop door?

[Denisea3465]

The title says it all. I was just wondering, because after googling a lot I can’t seem to find a good answer. We have a lot of breeding foxes around the area now, and one already took eight of our chickens.

Can they lift and squeeze under a pop door? Does it need to lock? Only four of my girls made it and I really don’t want lose them too.

I have a temporary but not great solution to “lock” it but am considering buying either an automated omlet or chicken guard extreme. But they are so expensive, I just can’t right now.

 

[TooCheep]

Depending on the design of your door, this may be a good, inexpensive way to protect it (from another thread):

As for raccoons lifting the door, I have a good solution. The door is basically a thin aluminum sheet on a string- pretty easy to lift up. The solution is to put a board covering the bottom of the door so they can't reach it to lift. All they can touch is the flat exterior of the door and that is plenty strong to keep them out. I'm attaching a picture below. You can see the side door runners and the bottom protective board has a gap to allow the door bottom to be protected when down.
View attachment 3157023

 

[perkolator]

We've lost several to fox and bobcat. So far nothing has been able to break into our RunChicken T50 door. I tested it with my hand and the servo motor that controls the gear is fairly strong, also no real way for an animal to "grab" the door or get under it to move it upward with the frame design in front of it.

I'll add that you need to make sure that whatever space the door leads them to daily needs to be secure. Ours dumps them into a 2nd expanded run, which wasn't as secure as it could have been - we had some issues with predator waiting for them in the morning when the door opened

 

[Denisea3465]

Depending on the design of your door, this may be a good, inexpensive way to protect it (from another thread):

Oh my goodness this is genius! Our door is 7mm plexiglass and very lightweight. A threshold on the outside would be really easy to add for now. Thank you so much!

 

[Denisea3465]

We've lost several to fox and bobcat. So far nothing has been able to break into our RunChicken T50 door. I tested it with my hand and the servo motor that controls the gear is fairly strong, also no real way for an animal to "grab" the door or get under it to move it upward with the frame design in front of it.

I'll add that you need to make sure that whatever space the door leads them to daily needs to be secure. Ours dumps them into a 2nd expanded run, which wasn't as secure as it could have been - we had some issues with predator waiting for them in the morning when the door opened

That is really good to hear! I was looking at that one as well. Thank you!

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

I put a carbiner through each latch on my run doors. The pop door is underneath the coop so I just leave it open but every other door is latched and secured with a caribiner. Our main problem is raccoons. I dont know much about foxes but I'm pretty sure their paws aren't as nimble as little raccoon fingers so this might be a cheapfix in the meantime for you

 

[Denisea3465]

I put a carbiner through each latch on my run doors. The pop door is underneath the coop so I just leave it open but every other door is latched and secured with a caribiner. Our main problem is raccoons. I dont know much about foxes but I'm pretty sure their paws aren't as nimble as little raccoon fingers so this might be a cheapfix in the meantime for you

I actually use carabiners too on the other two coop and run doors, they are great. We don’t have raccoons here but I know foxes can be quite clever and actually my own little dog can do some crazy maneuvers when he is motivated enough so I started to think I needed to be able to lock it.

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out a convenient way to latch the pop door without going in the coop which I would rather not have to do every morning and night. I ended up screwing a metal plate at the top I can turn and it blocks the door from going up, but it isn’t great. I’d rather not crawl in under the chickens roosting, one of these days they WILL poop on my back or head. They are just biding their time.

 

[DanEP]

I always build my pop door on the inside of the coop with the opening framed out with1 x 4 or whatever fits your walls. The trick is to make the door long enough to come down below the opening so that preditors can't reach the bottom of the door and raise it up. As long as the slide channels your door travels up and down are sturdy you door will be critter proof. building the door inside deny's access to all edges of the door. I just run a line thru a small hole to a small pulley over the door and open and close it this way. I have had one coop with this setup for about 13 years now with no losses.