One of our church members nearly lost her entire flock to coons. She kept fixing areas where she thought they were coming in. She thought it was a dog digging under and filled holes in with rocks. She filled cracks in wood slates. She tried week after week. Oh, by the way, she is 81 years old. She just absolutely loves her chickens.
Well, we went over one night after church to see if we could help or give her some suggestions on what to do next as they just keep coming back and getting more chickens. This had gone on for 3 or 4 weeks. It is a wonder she has any chickens left.
Well, we walked around and could not find a entry place and she kept telling us they were climbing up on the roof to eat the chickens and pointed up and showed us the feathers on the roof. After walking around the entire chicken yard and coop inside and out several times I just happened to look up by the door into the coop. The ends of the coops had really good size openings at the eves and their were feathers stuck up there where the coon had drug the chickens out and gone onto the roof.
She just could not believe that she had missed that area all those years. This was not her first long bout with coons. She took the chickens out after another attack and put them in a smaller coop with no day yard that was more secure. She said that night after night there were coon tracks going around and around and around the coop. She said finally she has not seen anymore coon tracks and hopes they have given up. Her eye sight is not what it used to be and she can't shoot well enough to kill them anymore. She did however, have to kill her own cats as they were eating her chickens as well.
She now has to re-grow her flock. She had probably gotten 20 or 30 chickens from us this year and hatched eggs out from us as well. They were just beginning to lay well and some were not quite at the laying age yet. Just a shame. The ones from us were our culls from the show birds that could not be shown. We did not want to kill them but knew they could not be used for show or breeding. So we found them what we thought was a good home.
My daughter said that no more of our chickens are going to her house as she does not want to know that were eaten by a coon.
