Coop Advice HELP!

[Clintonious]

Good afternoon! Above is a picture of our chicken coop area as it is right now. We decided to get chickens a few months ago, and have been working on this area of our life endlessly. Despite our hard work, we found a chicken dead this week... We are pretty sure that she jumped up onto the coop and over the fence and into our yard where we have 6 small dogs ready to play with them!

If you take notice of the picture- this area that we are using for our chicken run, is a fenced in area inside of our already fenced in yard. We currently have a 8 foot high fence that runs around our entire yard and it has already been reinforced years ago with additional fencing... I am not really that worried about predators coming in from the woods. Like I said I have six dogs, and doggie doors so they pretty much run the back yard- which is the issue. I am afraid the chickens are going to keep jumping over the fence to a death by dog attack.

When I originally started this I thought that 4 foot high regular fencing would be enough- but then as I did more research I realized that I needed chicken wire, and so I also reinforced the chicken run area with chicken wire around it. I bent it out about 12 inches at the bottom to keep anything from digging under it.



This pic is a birds eye view of the yard so that it gives you an idea of how it is set up in our yard. We basically turned a portion of our fenced in garden into a fenced in chicken area.

So in my continued efforts to keep my chickens alive- what else should I do? I dont think I need to worry about flying animals like hawks or anything like that. However maybe racoons, but we do lock the chickens up at night, and I have already installed locks on all the doors of the coop to keep them safe at night...

I am considering putting up another layer of fencing, and getting 6 foot high fencing that has the rectangular holes, to hopefully keep the chickens from jumping up and out of the coop area.... Do you think that will suffice?

I really dont want to have to put a roof of fencing stuff over it- I would rather take the chances with that, but I think that a 6 foot high fence height around their area would keep them from jumping over it themselves?

We have 4 hens all together, 1 barred rock, 1 buff orpington, and 2 cuckroo marans- not sure if they are olympic style jumpers or not...

Any advice would be helpful!

 

[Toddrick]

Why not just move he coop away from the fence so they cannot use it to jump? Or, raise the coop up higher than the fence, so they cannot use it as a ladder?

It depends on the breed how high they can fly. Adding a couple feet to your fence will help, but not if they can still jump on the roof, and fly over it. It looks like the coop is about 3.5 feet high, so raising the fence two feet will just mean they have to fly 2.5 feet to get out, and that is easy.

 

[Clintonious]

I am thinking that I should run the fence and make it 6 foot high, and also move the coop into the center. I moved it to where it was so that it would get shade earlier than the rest of the coop area though...

 

[Chickenteacher]

There are a lot of variables here.....I've had certain breeds of chickens who were more "flighty".....and a six foot fence wouldn't stop them.....also don't expect your girls to "learn" that getting too close to the dogs will result in death...I've lost many to our dogs and they don't learn... Your best solution would be a cover....then you wouldn't have to lock them up at night since the whole run would be safe....

 

[Clintonious]

This is why it is such a hard decision. I don't want to put up a third fence to achieve 6 feet, when the same thing is going to keep happening.

But I know for certain that if I had to fence in the overhead areas- I would need to take down the first and second fence I already have put in, and possibly the third fence that was here before I got here- so that I could put in supports supportive enough to hold the overhead fencing.

I've already gotten by dogs trained to not go back into the area with out me, but I am sure that they go back there when I am not here.

Option 1: Raise the Fence to 6 feet, and hope that it will be enough.

Option 2: Redo the fencing completely, and do an overhead enclosure as well to keep them on lock down 100%.

Option 3: Raise the Fence to 6 feet. If that doesn't work, get another chicken for $6, and then extend a fence from the far end corners of the garden to the fence that goes around our yard. This would ultimately create a "buffered area" that the dogs would not be able to ge tthe chickens... If the chickens did jump over their coop fence- then they would be in another fenced in area, seperate from the dogs. In the very crude drawing below- i highlighted in yellow where I would add in the fence...

So as you can see they could jump into the garden, or the "white area" which eventually I would find them and put them back in their coop area... I guess they could jump over both fences, and ultimately to their death with the dogs- but I think this would be a much much more cost effective option than #2..


Thoughts?

 

[Toddrick]

Lots of people, including me, use a 4 foot fence successfully. Think about chickens who free range in a pasture. Unless it is a flighty breed (like Leghorn) they are unlikely to just fly over the fence. As you said, they are almost certainly hopping up on the nesting box, then to the roof of the coop, and then going over the fence without really needing to fly at all. So I think you are making this harder than it needs to be by not just moving the fence away from the coop.

Perhaps an even simpler option is to put some plastic over the nesting box lid, so they will slide off if they try to hop up there. Like I said already, your coop is like a staircase right now, and making your fence two feet higher doesn't change that. Currently they can get on the roof and hop right over the fence, and if it were two feet higher they'd just need a couple wing flaps to get over that.

 

[Clintonious]

Ok. So I see your point. Last night we brought home the two cuckoo marans, and they were outside of the the coop, roosting at the top of the 4 foot fence in the garden area, where the grapes grow on the fence. It took us almost an hour to find them...

Regardless... The plan as of now, is to add 6 foot fencing around the entire area. I am also going to reinforce it with two additional 7 foot posts. I am going to use zip ties to help keep all the fences together.

I already got two 50 foot "2x3 rectangular mesh wire" that is sold to be used "for deer deterrent"... I am hoping that I can fatten these ladies up, and the wont be able to jump that high! I will post some pictures tonight after we get finished putting it in.

 

[Mutt Farm]

I'm a newby but have an idea that worked for me. In my run area, if I can explain this right. I left the top 1' of 6' chicken wire loose, then angled it inward. That way, if a chicken tries to land on it, they fall back down in the pen. They can't fly over it either. I hope you can see it in the picture...

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[Toddrick]

Also, barbed wire...

 

[Clintonious]

That is a great idea! Same as what I did with the chicken wire at the bottom of the fence to keep predators out, but instead it is at the top to keep the dumb chickens in!