Check my plans to Coyote proof our new coop

[chickenmomma16]

We have moved to a new home and our chickens are still at our old residence thanks to our previous landlords not having a problem with the chickens still being there. This has given us time to plan and build a new coop.

We have this so far:

We have purchased most of the materials for this type of run and we are planning on doing the apron:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/permanent-hoop-coop-guide

This should be strong enough right?
I just whitnessed the Coyote pack the neighbors have talked about and I counted 6 of them.
This is looking out of the chicken door, and the pack I saw came out of the tree line.

I have to make sure this is strong enough so I can sleep at night. This pack must live very close so I am sure they will be testing our enclosure routinely once the girls come to their new home.

 

[chickenmomma16]

Oh, one more thing, because we do not have electricity to any of the out buildings on the property we won't be doing the hot wire at this time as shown in the hoop run link.

 

[RPClark]

We have coyotes, raccoons, possums, and badgers around; I've seen all of them on the property at one time or another, so I was very interested in the link provided. Thanks for that.

The run in that link certainly looks strong enough. I tend to think it's a bit over-engineered, but it should work well and like the author said, last a long time.

As for the electric barrier, farm supply stores sell solar-powered electric fences. I think something could be cobbled together for $200 or a bit more. However, I think electrifying that barrier will be of limited usefulness with coyotes. They'll figure out pretty quickly that certain wires are hot and they'll work around them.

I was more interested in how the run keeps predators from digging under the walls. I had not thought of the wire mesh apron. I'm going to have to keep that in mind as I improve my run next Spring. Right now I have off-cut scraps of wire cloth, wire fence, and chicken wire buried under the bottom edge of the run walls. However, I'm getting a muddy mess around the edges of the outside of the run as the birds range when we're home and they're taking off that vegetation. I'll put down mulch or something; maybe I ought consider a wire mesh apron under that surfacing material. Wouldn't take much.

You didn't say, but I noticed your coop is elevated. If it was me, I'd also make sure that I put a barrier around the bottom of the coop if it's outside an already fenced off area. Don't want something like a skunk going under there!

 

[chickenmomma16]

We have coyotes, raccoons, possums, and badgers around; I've seen all of them on the property at one time or another, so I was very interested in the link provided.  Thanks for that.  

The run in that link certainly looks strong enough.  I tend to think it's a bit over-engineered, but it should work well and like the author said, last a long time.

As for the electric barrier, farm supply stores sell solar-powered electric fences.  I think something could be cobbled together for $200 or a bit more.  However, I think electrifying that barrier will be of limited usefulness with coyotes.  They'll figure out pretty quickly that certain wires are hot and they'll work around them.  

I was more interested in how the run keeps predators from digging under the walls.  I had not thought of the wire mesh apron.  I'm going to have to keep that in mind as I improve my run next Spring.  Right now I have off-cut scraps of wire cloth, wire fence, and chicken wire buried under the bottom edge of the run walls.  However, I'm getting a muddy mess around the edges of the outside of the run as the birds range when we're home and they're taking off that vegetation.  I'll put down mulch or something; maybe I ought consider a wire mesh apron under that surfacing material.  Wouldn't take much.

You didn't say, but I noticed your coop is elevated.  If it was me, I'd also make sure that I put a barrier around the bottom of the coop if it's outside an already fenced off area.  Don't want something like a skunk going under there! 

The coop is elevated because we have a creek maybe 130 feet from the coop and the risk of flooding is there. We were told that where the coop is now it doesn't flood there. But to be safe, we elevated it some. Our plan is to block access under the coop, not exactly sure how yet. I'm sure it will involve the hardware cloth.
Glad the link helped you!