How to raccoon-proof these latches?

[Rldad1]

Try one of these and use a carabiner or a safety pin. You can get it at Lowe's

 

[mamajos]

Some carabiners I have need to be screwed and unscrewed to lock and unlock them- a bit more work to open, but more tricky for the predators.

 

[kat_and_hens]

Try one of these and use a carabiner or a safety pin. You can get it at Lowe's

View attachment 2509887

This is the kind we bought but it doesn’t work with the door being recessed in the trim Although maybe if we had the bolt slide into a hole instead of the metal bracket...

 

[ScratchNbawk]

I think @RedneckUrbanFarmer has a good idea. The wood doesn’t even have to run the full length of the door. You could add 2 smaller pieces if you want.
Or if you use @Rldad1, you won’t have to add a wood strip, but you may need a larger hole, if that makes sense.

 

[CluckerFamily]

This is the kind we bought but it doesn’t work with the door being recessed in the trim ☹ Although maybe if we had the bolt slide into a hole instead of the metal bracket...

It will work if you add a piece of wood to put under the latch to make it flush with the wall.

 

[Journeys End]

Hey friends! We are prepping our big coop for the girls to move into soon. They’re getting too big in the “baby” coop we have set up in our garage.

But I know these latches won’t hold up to a clever raccoon. I bought a different, pad-lockable latch from Lowes today but unfortunately it won’t work with the way our coop door is built.

Any suggestions on how to make these latches work to keep our girls safe, or suggestions of pest-proof latches that might work on our setup? The door is kind of recessed in the frame, which made the larger gate latch I purchased impossible to install.

Thanks all!

consider mounting set of door "baracade" brackets on either side then use a 2x4 to hold doors closed, or as someone else mentioned add piece of wood to bring level of door flush and mount a latch that takes a pad lock, use a lock that takes a key, I know its a nuisance but racs are clever and talented

 

[cmom]

I use spring latch hooks and nothing has opened them. The springs are pretty strong. Sometimes I even have a little difficulty with them.

 

[RedneckUrbanFarmer]

I have heard that raccoons can open carabiners?

I used these to reinforce the door hardware on my prefab coop - pretty sure a raccoon can't open these. They're stiff and you have to hold them open and rotate quite far at the same time.

 

[Howard E]

Try one of these and use a carabiner or a safety pin. You can get it at Lowe's

View attachment 2509887

It should still work with OP's setup. The strike plate.......the loop on the right the bolt slides into can be mounted as shown, or turned 90 degrees so the bolt slides into the hole. I use this type latch on all my pedestrian doors. That is a quick and easy install.....and latch is pretty much bomb proof.

Having said that, I also have the same "wimpy" latch the builder used installed on the pop doors (2 of them) on the Woods house. I'm living in varmint and coon central and in 6 years, no animal has ever figured out how to open them. If one could get a paw past the edge so it could pull hard, it might force it open, but with my setup, none ever has. But mine are also a tight fit. If loose and floppy, that would be a different story. Pop doors are also located on a side, with wide open end around the corner. They get distracted on the open window looking in.

 

[cmom]

I don't shut my pop doors, but with the hot wires around my coops and pens, they have to get by them first. Never had a coon issue. I have seen them now and then on my game cameras but never on the cameras aimed at the coops. I have seen them dead on the side of the road now and then, so I assume we must have a healthy population in the area. Our main road is about a mile away. That's where I have seen them mostly.