Oh my am I angry.

[Mattemma]

Game cam and lock.Lock first. With this type of behavior you need to watch for poisons tossed in the yard.

 

[txliss]

Glad you are getting a game cam. Remember, coons can open latches too. Good to confirm before "chatting" with neighbors...

Hope you get to the bottom of it all!

 

[7L Farm]

Didn't read every post !!! I would put up a no Trespassing Sign & load my guns.

 

[jbs]

I had a lot of trouble with a neighbor a few years ago, vandalism, threats, screaming at us, and he'd let my dog out of our fenced yard, then call Animal Control and report that our dog was running loose. This was before we had chickens, or he probably would have opened our coop and let our chickens out, then maybe called AC about that. People can be truly nuts. It sounds like you're right to be suspicious about your neighbor. The game cam is a good idea to verify what's going on - although my game cams flash with the infrared and are a bit too obvious to be stealthy.

We started with game cams and a few webcams before we got a closed circuit surveillance system, and set up a number of motion detection lights, and that pretty much took care of our problem. We also set up some fake cameras, which are a great deterrent. I like the one that an earlier poster referenced, the one from American Science and Surplus. That looks more convincing that my dummy cameras, which just flashed red. One of the police officers we spoke to told us that cameras would solve our problem, and they did, but it took awhile to get everything set up. Here in Maryland, in order to charge someone with trespass, we needed to first send our neighbor a No Trespass Order via certified mail. If we caught him on our property after that (we didn't), we could press charges. If I ever have problems with anyone again, I will not hesitate to send them the trespass letter.

Before our problems with our neighbor, I had no idea that anyone could be so much trouble. I've since spoken to a number of people who had surprisingly similar experiences. There are a lot of unstable people out there. I hope in your case you find out that it's a problem with your coop latch and not a psycho neighbor. Good luck!