elliandfritz
Songster
- Mar 2, 2019
- 117
- 207
- 101
Good morning!
I encountered a troubling scene this morning when we went to let my chicks out of their growing out coop. We have this smallish coop in our fenced backyard to use as a grow out coop until our big coop is finished in a few weeks and the chicks are big enough and comfortable enough outside to move in. The pre-fab coop already has several latches installed. When I assembled it, I added several additional latches to keep out coons.
When we left them last night, all 8 chicks (two groups - 4 are 9 weeks and 4 are 6 weeks) were shut up in the coop with all latches done. When we went to let them out this morning, several things were strange.
1) the top part of the Dutch door was wide open and against the wall of the run
2) both sliding latches were open with no damage on only that top part of the Dutch door
3) the carabiner from the latch I installed was placed on the non-moving part of the latch which means that something took the carabiner off, removed the moving part of the latch, and then PLACED THE CARABINER BACK ON. This is the part that really got to me.
4) Only the four young chicks were out in the run and yard. The other older chicks were still in the coop with the coop door closed. The young chicks are beyond skittish and are hard for even me to catch. The older chicks are semi friendly and easy to catch. The young ones have to either been removed by hand to leave the coop or they wait until someone has been gone for about 5 minutes to leave on their own. The older chicks fly out of the coop as soon as it is opened.
So, I am confused by many things. Why was only the top door opened? Why was the carabiner put back? Why were the skittish chicks out? Why were the big chicks still in the coop? Why are no chickens taken?
Is there any predator other than human that could do this? What should I do? Is there anything more I can do to protect myself and chicks? I feel scared and violated that someone might have entered my back yard and coop. We live in a rural area with only two neighbors. One set of neighbors is super nice and is on vacation out of town for the weekend. The other set is pretty weird and we’ve had some problems with their dogs going in our yard, biting at us, and dragging off our trash.
Here are pictures we took to show what they looked like:
This is the coop on lockdown mode
This is the coop as it was found
This is how the latch was left
I encountered a troubling scene this morning when we went to let my chicks out of their growing out coop. We have this smallish coop in our fenced backyard to use as a grow out coop until our big coop is finished in a few weeks and the chicks are big enough and comfortable enough outside to move in. The pre-fab coop already has several latches installed. When I assembled it, I added several additional latches to keep out coons.
When we left them last night, all 8 chicks (two groups - 4 are 9 weeks and 4 are 6 weeks) were shut up in the coop with all latches done. When we went to let them out this morning, several things were strange.
1) the top part of the Dutch door was wide open and against the wall of the run
2) both sliding latches were open with no damage on only that top part of the Dutch door
3) the carabiner from the latch I installed was placed on the non-moving part of the latch which means that something took the carabiner off, removed the moving part of the latch, and then PLACED THE CARABINER BACK ON. This is the part that really got to me.
4) Only the four young chicks were out in the run and yard. The other older chicks were still in the coop with the coop door closed. The young chicks are beyond skittish and are hard for even me to catch. The older chicks are semi friendly and easy to catch. The young ones have to either been removed by hand to leave the coop or they wait until someone has been gone for about 5 minutes to leave on their own. The older chicks fly out of the coop as soon as it is opened.
So, I am confused by many things. Why was only the top door opened? Why was the carabiner put back? Why were the skittish chicks out? Why were the big chicks still in the coop? Why are no chickens taken?
Is there any predator other than human that could do this? What should I do? Is there anything more I can do to protect myself and chicks? I feel scared and violated that someone might have entered my back yard and coop. We live in a rural area with only two neighbors. One set of neighbors is super nice and is on vacation out of town for the weekend. The other set is pretty weird and we’ve had some problems with their dogs going in our yard, biting at us, and dragging off our trash.
Here are pictures we took to show what they looked like:
This is the coop on lockdown mode
This is the coop as it was found
This is how the latch was left
