Help with ideas for fixing this up!

[UrbanEgg]

Here is what my coop/run looks like right now

It has wood fencing around 2 sides (just the backyard fence) and welded iron fencing around the other 2 sides. I would love to fix this area up so that the run is predator proof. I want to be able to leave the pop door open all the time so the chickens can enter/leave at will. I'd also like to hanging a larger feeder under the coop so I'd love the little scurrying predators to not be able to get into it--at least not with out me really noticing--like a big hole dug out or something. Is it possible? Ideas? My one idea right now is do to some fortifications with hardware cloth (but how??) and maybe to add a plastic "bumpy" roof so they have a little bit more dry area--it is WA after all.

Oh and we have bald eagles around, racoons, possums, and rats. In NW Washington. We have a completely fenced backyard, so not so worried about coyotes or fox or dogs. Mostly the climbing/flying/digging animals.

 

[Dogfish]

Cover the top of the run. THe fence allows an entry point for coons and possum.

 

[joletabey]

You could cover what you have with hardware cloth- bending part of it out into the yard. You could wire it to what you have. Dogs will dig, so I would take that precaution. So will rats, and if you leave the food out at night, you will get them. I can't tell what kind of netting you have overhead, but hopefully it will keep flying predators out.
I would also attach the hardware cloth to the wood fencing you have- it looks like there is a rat/mouse size gap between your metal post and the wall.

How do you get in there?

 

[UrbanEgg]

Quote:
The netting overhead is just bird netting--so a racoon could climb the fence and eat everyone if I didn't lock the coop doors at night--which is what I'd love to eliminate. The 2 iron fence panels in front of the red chicken are not hooked together in the middle and serve as a double gate. To clean the coop I roll my wheelbarrow in there and use a hoe to scoop everything into it. And actually the double doors will soon be closed up and be nest boxes on the outside of the coop--but hanging so they are removable for cleaning/filling feed and water.

 

[UrbanEgg]

Quote:
If I screw a 2x4 to the top of my wooden fence (at the back) and then buy some plastic roofing (clear kind with bumps) and screw that down to it, sloping down away from the fence and attached to more posts...then hardware cloth around everything else....could a coon get in through the roof still? I was looking at this design: https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=36770 And hoping to do some similar stuff with what I already have.