Security light that goes on frequently

[DonyaQuick]

Ahhh, the first night out. How did it go?

I think it went well! It was pretty uneventful aside from me waking up out of paranoia to look out the window every couple hours. No weirdness with the lights in their new positions, just peace and quiet. I was a bit worried that the chicks would be upset with me this morning for having put them in a new sleeping place, since getting them all in there didn't go entirely smoothly. The first 5 went in no problem, totally cool with it, and then my biggest going in last had to throw a huge, leg-kicking tantrum of "no mommy don't put me in the scary place!" Of course that set all the others off, so I had a coop full of running and screaming for a while. They settled down eventually though, and they were all calm and happy this morning. I have two that have always been more standoffish and even they came in for hugs after the morning bug hunt.

Carrying those growing biddies back and forth every day does start to become a feat of strength.

The tub I was using to carry mine around was also starting to look like the uncomfortable rush hour experiences I used to have on the NYC subways. Same tub was my first brooder for them just a bit over a month ago - they grow so fast!

 

[K0k0shka]

I prefer a headlamp over solar (or non-solar) lights for doing chores outside after dark. I have a motion-activated solar light, too, but mine is weird and unreliable, too - gets triggered by the wind blowing branches around, so I just ignore it now. For locks I have hasps with carabiner clips going through them. The carabiners hang on chains screwed to the door frame, so when I open the door, the clip hangs on its chain. That way I don't have to worry about losing it (or losing keys). Works great and predators can't open it.

 

[3KillerBs]

The tub I was using to carry mine around was also starting to look like the uncomfortable rush hour experiences I used to have on the NYC subways. Same tub was my first brooder for them just a bit over a month ago - they grow so fast!

Yes, same here yesterday when I had to jam them all into a large cat carrier while we moved the brooder into the pen now that they're off heat (would have been a week sooner if 2 of my 3 Langshans hadn't still been half-naked while the others were fully-feathered at 4 weeks.

I could barely get them all in there.

When they were little I stuck them into a 5-gallon bucket and they had space.

 

[DonyaQuick]

So far so good keeping things out of the coop. No signs of attempted break-ins. My chicks actually bugged me last night to put them to bed in the coop! The lock system is working well and I haven't yet locked the keys inside or lost any. Now I've just got to deal with keeping everybody IN...no amount of door locks or lights will help me if they try to run out past me when a resident hawk is circling. After ninja grabbing three at once who tried to follow me out the door, I put together this awful rickety thing to deter escape attempts when I enter/exit.

It's been reasonably effective so far and doesn't interfere much with my lights' motion sensors working as intended. My chickens poke their heads out as I'm leaving and go "oh...nothing to see here" and then go back in. So much for things being pretty though lol. I hope I can ditch the janky escape barrier eventually. If not, I'll have to plan out a more stable design with better materials.

Yes, same here yesterday when I had to jam them all into a large cat carrier while we moved the brooder into the pen now that they're off heat (would have been a week sooner if 2 of my 3 Langshans hadn't still been half-naked while the others were fully-feathered at 4 weeks.

I had a similar feathering issue with this batch. They all started at basically the same size, but one grew and feathered so fast that I wondered for a while if it was really the same breed as the others. Trying to manage temperatures was a challenge with the size and development disparity between largest and smallest.

 

[LaurelC]

I'm still trying to figure out exactly what type I'm dealing with. I saw a good sized, very long brown thing run across the road as I was driving out one day. Definitely some sort of weasel but first time I've ever seen such a thing in the wild. I've heard they like to be around water and one edge of my property is bounded by a steep drop to a creek, so no too surprising.



Is it possible to get things like that with some kind of generic, uninteresting key? I am a chronic loser of unique keys to small padlocks - got a stack of the darned things where I hope some day the key will turn up again. I've tried searching but one of the things I've run into with this coop mod is that terminology matters a lot to find the right thing. I wondered about combination locks but I'm worried they'd get gummed up and stuck (another worry I have for padlocks outdoors).

According to our neighbor, we have minks in the area, and they're particularly skilled at slaughtering chickens. Maybe look into them? They apparently like watery environments


Also - re: lock - from what I've read, most even crafty raccoons struggle to open caribiners with threaded locking rings (like this). We had 2 hasps on our gate to our old chicken enclosure and the top one (meaning the raccoons would have to be hanging onto the enclosure 4' off the ground and unscrew and work the carabiner and then rotate the locking hasp to open the latch. We figured if we ended up with raccoons that could figure that out in one night (if it had been messed with it would be easy enough to throw an actual lock on there before they had another night to work on it) they deserved the chickens. Never even removed the non-locking carabiner from the bottom hasp.

If you're actually wanting a lock, make a few extra copies of the key, and tie one to an area near the lock so you don't ever remove it, then you won't need to worry about losing it but if you manage to, you'll have extra copies.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Also - re: lock - from what I've read, most even crafty raccoons struggle to open caribiners with threaded locking rings (like this).

I have a weird observation about those carabiners, although not with racoons. My small parrot can undo them even when they're done up tight enough to give me trouble. I don't entirely know how he does it, since I've never caught him in the act in the 25 years I've had him. I'll just hang up one of his toys with a tightly screwed in carabiner and come back to find it completely unhooked and on the floor later. Comparing small parrots and racoons might be apples to oranges but it still bothered me a bit when I was considering how to racoon-proof things.

make a few extra copies of the key, and tie one to an area near the lock so you don't ever remove it, then you won't need to worry about losing it but if you manage to, you'll have extra copies.

I need to do the key-on-a-rope or chain thing as soon as I can get something suitable for it. My tendency to always put something with keys on it straight in my pocket has been difficult to override.