Darm Racoons!!

[ksmith]

My friend started out with 7 chicks. He lost 4 of them to hawks. After he solved this problem by putting netting over the run, now racoons are eating their poor little feet

. One of them has already lost a toe, and can wlk fine, but the other looks like she is starting to loose a toe and limps around. Can racoons really pull a whole toe off? He has wire mesh for the bottom. What can he do to deter them away? They have ripped though the wire he put up around the bottom of the coop.

 

[alexarae]

Th racoons can be very troublesome. i had the same problem while raising ducks last year. try using a sturdier mesh like chicken wire (or even use something thicker) make sure u secure onto the run good.
if you see the racoons trying to break in scare them away!
also are you sure that the ripped off toes are from the racoons. they could be from the mesh bottom...
hope i was helpful

 

[welasharon]

Chicken wire is useless as a protection. You/he needs to use hardware cloth to prevent them from getting through or pulling parts through.

 

[mjuenem]

The trick to lining the bottom walls of chain link with something tighter is to wire it INSIDE the chain link and not outside. The coon has a much tougher time getting any leverage because the hadware cloth is inside the 2x2 chain link.

 

[ksmith]

Thanks everyone! I will pass this on to him.