CBsFutureFarm
Hatching
- Jul 3, 2018
- 6
- 3
- 6
I apologize in advance for the copious use of pictures in this post. I am hoping to find help in determining the weak spot in my coop/run. The history is this:
My son and I turned the play house / swing set into a coop and run about 5 years ago. One of the design flaws as far as I was concerned is that the only entry to the run was under the coop so I had to squat and crawl any time I needed to get in to clean, add toys, food, water, etc. Despite this, it worked well. We got 8 chickens and everything was good for that flock for 2 years. No predators got in until the night I got lazy and didn't put the chickens away or close the run and a fox came and got all of my chickens (while the dog was inside going nuts and I was busy saying, "Be quite, there's nothing out there!" Bad chicken mama moment to be sure...). It was traumatic enough that we did not get any more chickens for a long time.
Fast forward a few years to this past May. We decided to to try again, but I did not want to deal with the entry any more and so added a door to the run and closed up the prior entry. We got four chickens and things were fine for about a month. (Some of the following is in a thread in another forum because I was not sure what got in at first). I put everyone away at 9, closed up the run and coop and went to bed. Came out in the morning and a racoon had killed 3 of the four (they were beheaded but bodies left), I found the weak spot that the racoon had exploited and fixed that. Examined all over, found no other apparent weak spots and so went and got our surviving chicken more flockmates. They adjusted together really well, I was happy and things seemed to be going well. Until 2 nights later when a fox got in and got them all. I am fairly sure it was a fox as my dog chased one from the woods behind the coop the night before, it took the entire body of all 4, and we heard it carrying off the last one into the woods. I cannot find how it got in and out with them, however. There was a spot that seemed like it was trying to dig in, but it hit the buried wire and didn't get through there. I have taken several pictures of the door as the run used to be secure and that is the only new part of the coop. There is one hole one of my girls found which looks like it might be big enough for a fox to get in and out of, but there are no feathers on it and I would have thought some would have gotten stuck on the wire. Obviously I will fix this hole, but I am wondering if this really could have been the spot the fox got in.
My apologies for the length of this and all the pictures but I would really like to try again and do no think I can handle loosing more chickens. Thank you in advance!
This is the hole:
This is the door:
And this is the whole set up. It is hard to tell from this picture, but it has wire around the run, over the top, and buried out at the bottom. Them I have chain link wrapped around the bottom so that it goes out from the bottom but also up about 18 inches.
My son and I turned the play house / swing set into a coop and run about 5 years ago. One of the design flaws as far as I was concerned is that the only entry to the run was under the coop so I had to squat and crawl any time I needed to get in to clean, add toys, food, water, etc. Despite this, it worked well. We got 8 chickens and everything was good for that flock for 2 years. No predators got in until the night I got lazy and didn't put the chickens away or close the run and a fox came and got all of my chickens (while the dog was inside going nuts and I was busy saying, "Be quite, there's nothing out there!" Bad chicken mama moment to be sure...). It was traumatic enough that we did not get any more chickens for a long time.
Fast forward a few years to this past May. We decided to to try again, but I did not want to deal with the entry any more and so added a door to the run and closed up the prior entry. We got four chickens and things were fine for about a month. (Some of the following is in a thread in another forum because I was not sure what got in at first). I put everyone away at 9, closed up the run and coop and went to bed. Came out in the morning and a racoon had killed 3 of the four (they were beheaded but bodies left), I found the weak spot that the racoon had exploited and fixed that. Examined all over, found no other apparent weak spots and so went and got our surviving chicken more flockmates. They adjusted together really well, I was happy and things seemed to be going well. Until 2 nights later when a fox got in and got them all. I am fairly sure it was a fox as my dog chased one from the woods behind the coop the night before, it took the entire body of all 4, and we heard it carrying off the last one into the woods. I cannot find how it got in and out with them, however. There was a spot that seemed like it was trying to dig in, but it hit the buried wire and didn't get through there. I have taken several pictures of the door as the run used to be secure and that is the only new part of the coop. There is one hole one of my girls found which looks like it might be big enough for a fox to get in and out of, but there are no feathers on it and I would have thought some would have gotten stuck on the wire. Obviously I will fix this hole, but I am wondering if this really could have been the spot the fox got in.
My apologies for the length of this and all the pictures but I would really like to try again and do no think I can handle loosing more chickens. Thank you in advance!
This is the hole:
This is the door:
And this is the whole set up. It is hard to tell from this picture, but it has wire around the run, over the top, and buried out at the bottom. Them I have chain link wrapped around the bottom so that it goes out from the bottom but also up about 18 inches.
