- Feb 27, 2012
- 17
- 0
- 22
Greetings BYC!
I get so much great info from you guys, and I wanted to share my own solution to a problem that was making me uneasy.
I'm new to keeping chickens. We have raccoons visiting our yard every evening raiding the bird feeders, so I wanted the most secure coop I could find. I settled on the Eglu cube - costly, but with several features that would make things easier on me in terms of maintenance. The greyhound delivery was a bit of a PITA, but I did receive the Cube and spent a pleasant afternoon putting it together. Only to find that the egg door did not seem all that secure from a raccoon's busy little hands. With only one turn of the knob the door is open - my active imagination could envision a raccoon opening it even by accident.
What to do? Well I came up with a $10 security system that will allow me sleep at night. At the hardware store I bought 2 lengths of vinyl-coated cable. The guy at the hardware store crimped a small loop at each end of both cables. I also purchased 2 carabiner clips.
In the photo you can see the egg door has two vent holes. Each cable goes through a vent hole and loops around through another vent on either the front or back of the coop. The carabiner clips secure the cables. With both cables looped and clipped it is impossible to open the egg door.
My chickens are still chicks, so I'm not using the egg door at all right now. Time will tell if this is a practical solution - I may have to adjust to make it easier to open every day. But in the meantime I can blow raspberries at the sweet-faced bandits haunting my yard every night.
I get so much great info from you guys, and I wanted to share my own solution to a problem that was making me uneasy.
I'm new to keeping chickens. We have raccoons visiting our yard every evening raiding the bird feeders, so I wanted the most secure coop I could find. I settled on the Eglu cube - costly, but with several features that would make things easier on me in terms of maintenance. The greyhound delivery was a bit of a PITA, but I did receive the Cube and spent a pleasant afternoon putting it together. Only to find that the egg door did not seem all that secure from a raccoon's busy little hands. With only one turn of the knob the door is open - my active imagination could envision a raccoon opening it even by accident.
What to do? Well I came up with a $10 security system that will allow me sleep at night. At the hardware store I bought 2 lengths of vinyl-coated cable. The guy at the hardware store crimped a small loop at each end of both cables. I also purchased 2 carabiner clips.
In the photo you can see the egg door has two vent holes. Each cable goes through a vent hole and loops around through another vent on either the front or back of the coop. The carabiner clips secure the cables. With both cables looped and clipped it is impossible to open the egg door.
My chickens are still chicks, so I'm not using the egg door at all right now. Time will tell if this is a practical solution - I may have to adjust to make it easier to open every day. But in the meantime I can blow raspberries at the sweet-faced bandits haunting my yard every night.
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