super racoon ? or weight lifting possum..

[12Cackleberries]

We are in the process of building our coop using a chain link pen also, soon to be put together. I plan on wrapping the pen in hardware cloth but also will lock the door to the coop at night. We have no chickens just yet. Don't want to put the chickens before the coop!

We had a coon that chewed through wire on a suet cake feeder just to get the suet cake out and have dinner. This coon would sit in the bird bath out in the yard and eat as he watched our dogs go nuts from inside the house. He showed no sign of fear. We set a cage trap for him and put a suet cake inside and dang if he didn't turn the trap over and reach its fingers through the wire and grab the cake without entering the trap. The next night we put another suet cake in the trap and covered all but the entrance of the trap with fire wood and chained it to a tree. Yep, we got him but boy was he ******!
We are trying to build this coop to protect the hens from anything that flies, crawls or slithers in the night. If all efforts fail, lead will do it.

 

[12Cackleberries]

Captured and he still ate the suet cake!

 

[cutechick2010]

I would like to see a pic. I think this is what I need to do. Do you know if a possum will climb the fenceing???

Yeah, it sure will.

 

[kari_dawn]

Captured and he still ate the suet cake!

heck, he's already caught! Why waste a good meal? LOL

 

[Squawkbox]

Yikes! Raccons and Possums sound awful!!! I am glad those are predators I do not have to deal with. What a nuisance!!!

 

[harveyhorses]

PSA be careful cutting the hardware cloth, I am having to put it in the bottom of my raised beds, and thought one end was safely
attached. I now look like cyclops, and am really lucky it didn't poke my eye.
Also have you toyed with they thought of electric fence around the whole place? Really discourages diggers and climbers. I would still put a roof on though.