@mitsi I think it's great to take these sorts of issues into consideration and planning ahead. In regards to your concerns about predators. I live in rural Texas and I've spotted at least seven type os predatory animals active in my area. That included coyotes, foxes, bobcat, raccoon, hawks, possums, etc. The two biggest culprits that I have dealt with in regards to posing a threat to my chickens are feral and/or poorly domesticated dogs and opossums. In my experience possums are usually opportunistic. They scavenge mostly, but will take advantage of an open door or gate. I've had what I suspect were possums enter my hen house on two occasions and drag out a hen and eat a portion of them. When I secured the doors, this was no longer an issue. I have chicken wire on the uppermost portion of my coop door and it's about 6.5' tall. It's been that way for over 10 years. I have never had an animal chew through the chicken wire. The lower half of the door is corrugated tin. a possum can and will climb easily, but they are typically slow and don't like to work hard for food. I also night hunt and have years of experience observing most nocturnal animals in my region when they are most active.
I have had a dog dig under my coop fence and eat a hen in the run years ago. I caught him in the act, grabbed the 1st tool I could get my hands on, jumped in the coop, and dispatched the offender on the spot (I initially thought it was a coyote). In regards to digging, as mentioned a garden cloth skirt is effective. In years past I have buried bricks, barbed wire, welded wire, and a few other things in attempt to discourage digging. I think that garden cloth is most effective. I used to nail it to wood on the hen house and bend it out burying it to make a skirt. Sometimes I'd bury it straight down several inches. This isn't effective in keeping chickens from scratching and digging along fences and structures. I recently began using landscape staples to secure it in place flat on the ground.
Landscape staples photos
Here’s a bit of wire I secured using these staples. There is already some wire buried below this wall of the hen house that is affixed to a 2x4 on the frame. The wire strips on this side are about 7” wide. I believe this is ½” garden cloth. I use an ordinary hammer to tap the staples into the ground. If the staple hits a root or a rock they can an will likely bend. When this happens, pull the staple out, try to bend it as straight as you can, and reposition it to hammer it down again. Hopefully you will miss the hard stuff after figuring out a better orientation to start hammering your staple. I used 6-8 staples per strip and I hammer alternating back on forth from one side to that other on top of the staple to drive them down as evenly as possible.
I hope this helps.
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