new member, no chickens yet! Worried about coons...

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We have tons of coons and possums in our area. I did build a covered run with field fencing and an apron of hardware cloth. They stayed in the run while they were young, but they have been free ranging all day long since then. I don't think you'll have a problem with those animals as they are mostly out at night when your chickens will be safe in their coop.

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At the very least, string welded wire for fence and cover the pen top with wire for their nights. If they're free range, your day predators will be hawks and foxes, possibly coyotes and owls

on overcast mornings. Nights are when possums, raccoons, skunks & bobcats are active. Never put scraps out when they won't be eaten way before dark, build pen close to house and have on

some sort of floodlight aimed toward the pen. My chicken pen shares a fence line with my doberman and I think the proximity discourages the predators. My dog is a good chicken dog...she's never

messed with them, even when they've accidentally come into "her" yard. Snakes are will be active real soon (I'm in SE Texas). That's when the mothballs go around the nesting boxes and

I always try to collect the eggs several times a day, definitely before dark. I haven't lost a chicken in more than in 30 years to a predator (I've raised them here and in Calif for almost 40 yrs).

Good Luck and you're going to love having chickens!
 
While our climate is quite different, we also have lots of racoons. To the point you see them when driving up at night, that kind of thing. One got caught in our shed once! Yuck!

We choose to have a pen for our chickens and not have them free range. While we occasionally let them out with supervision, between the racoons at night and the dogs of our neighborhood during the day (even out here in the wilderness), we just don't think our chickens would be safe. We are coming up on our year anniversary of having chickens and so far have lost only one......the one that continually escaped from our safe little enclosure we made for them.

We do bring lots of things from the garden to them and I think they enjoy their yard very much. We just made it plenty large. Ours is a permanent structure as we don't have alot of cleared land, but you could make something portable and tractor them quite easily.
 
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Your doing it right...the more you find out now the better things will be for you and the birds. If you make your coop user freindly for the birds and YOU....you'll love the hobby more
 

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