So tonight my dogs were barking and wouldn't come in, and when I went outside to check, they looked like they had "treed" something in the chicken run, on top of the coop and under the tarps we have to keep the run dry. It was a fisher cat, which we have tons of here in Mass. We have the coop inside a dog run, which my kids lined on the bottom with hardware cloth, running it up the sides, to keep the foxes and raccoons out; and the the whole is covered with two large tarps to keep the mud and mess down. This animal apparently was able to climb up the side of the run and slip under the tarps to go onto the roof. Thank heavens the coop was closed up already and chickens were secure, or we wouldn't have any chickens anymore. My DH bludgeoned this animal with a baseball bat and it didn't phase it one bit; it took two rounds from his 45 to stop it.
So my question is, do you think that covering the run/coop area with the hardware cloth like we did the bottom would work to keep out the predators from above? Would it be adequate to keep predators like these fishers from creeping into the pen?
So my question is, do you think that covering the run/coop area with the hardware cloth like we did the bottom would work to keep out the predators from above? Would it be adequate to keep predators like these fishers from creeping into the pen?
