Lost my flock of three chickens today....

[PetesChicks]

Good luck with your new girls!

Have you thought of an Invisible Fence for the dog to keep it away from your chickens? I don't have a problem with my dog & chickens, but the fence works great to keep her in the yard. The collar beeps if she gets too close to the line, and gives a corrective shock if the dog doesn't move back. My beagle hasn't been shocked since the initial training. They have whole yard systems, with a buried wire, and also area systems that have a battery operated transmitter that works for a certain radius.

 

[bugkiller]

The

How did they get in if you don't mind me asking.  As I type this, two raccoons are probing for a way into my 4x8 run and coop. 
The little sh*ts can't get in so far haha

roof was rotting and was on my list of things to fix this month. It chewed through the wood on the roof and killed all 3.

 

[junebuggena]

I had a coyote chew through plywood to get into my coop. When a predator is that determined, nothing will stop them.

 

[Fluffyserama]

How did they get in if you don't mind me asking. As I type this, two raccoons are probing for a way into my 4x8 run and coop.
The little sh*ts can't get in so far haha

I've had raccoons work as a team to kill chickens through the wire. One would scramble on the roof of the coop while screaming in order to scare them out into the run. Others would be around the perimiter waiting to grab them when they came close. One night I went out and counted 6 of the DA*# things on or around the coop/ run. On the nights they made a kill we would come out in the morning to find bodies missing legs, wings, and heads The raccoons would pull what ever they could out the wire and leave the carnage for us to find. We ended up having to replace the standard chicken wire with 1/2 in hardware cloth.

 

[PingoBags]

@bugkiller
ah man that sucks! Did you get the coons in the end?
Rot was one of my concerns too.
My coop is small so it didn't take much to add a few coats of paint and shingles.
Mine is just an over sized dog house I made that never got used so I converted it into a coop.
My setup is ugly as hell, not like these fancy coops on here. Lots of recycled or unwanted wood, mistint paint for cheap

@Fluffyserama
My run uses chain link which a raccoon would have no issue reaching in but my coop vents are all covered with 1/8 mesh of some sort that I sourced for free.
My vents are small enough that a coon wouldn't beable to climb through if they did manage to push through the mesh.

Seems like everyone has a bad raccoon story...
I'm starting to rethink things now. I have no door leading from the coop to enclosed run.
The only way I can think they could get in is to slip under my 20" skirt and then dig under the run.
I never buried the skirt but I did use tent pegs and a few random bricks, rocks and logs.

 

[Millworker26]

@bugkiller
ah man that sucks! Did you get the coons in the end?
Rot was one of my concerns too.
My coop is small so it didn't take much to add a few coats of paint and shingles.
Mine is just an over sized dog house I made that never got used so I converted it into a coop.
My setup is ugly as hell, not like these fancy coops on here. Lots of recycled or unwanted wood, mistint paint for cheap

@Fluffyserama
My run uses chain link which a raccoon would have no issue reaching in but my coop vents are all covered with 1/8 mesh of some sort that I sourced for free.
My vents are small enough that a coon wouldn't beable to climb through if they did manage to push through the mesh.

Seems like everyone has a bad raccoon story...
I'm starting to rethink things now. I have no door leading from the coop to enclosed run.
The only way I can think they could get in is to slip under my 20" skirt and then dig under the run.
I never buried the skirt but I did use tent pegs and a few random bricks, rocks and logs.

I like to set the Dukes dog proof coon traps every once in a while just to see what's out there. After clearing all the coons initially, I can now set the trap out there for weeks and catch nothing. Makes meek feel better about getting home late to shut the coop door, or in your case not having a coop door at all.