Very Smart Raccoon Need Help.

[smedly9921]

So I have had my chickens for more than a year now with no deaths to raccoons. Now i know they all around my house i trap and kill them almost every day. So when i built my coop i built a strong fence. Well 1 week ago i lost a baby chick when a raccoon tried to pull that poor little chick right threw the fence. Of course the fence held up and the raccoon only got the head, but still a chicken is dead. I thought it was a one time deal. Well several days later i found only feathers left of one of my Plymouth rock hens. Some how that thing got inside. I put up game cameras and made sure that all weak areas of the fence (there were not many) were fortified. Sure enough 2 days later another dead chicken. This time i had pictures to tell a story. He got in by climbing up over the 8 foot high fence finding a small hole in the fence in top and dropping down. I'm guessing he got out the same way. Well i have fortified the roof but am worried that it might not be enough. Any ideas of how to keep raccoons away other than super strong expensive fences (cause i have one of those).

 

[Renegade Rescue]

try a cattle shock fence.

 

[smedly9921]

Wont that hurt my chickens?

 

[centrarchid]

Even with the racoon, the electrified fence causes no real damage. Chickens may get zapped until they figure the fencing out.

 

[cafarmgirl]

Wont that hurt my chickens?

You put it on the outside of the run. Get a charger at your nearest feed store. Run a couple strands of wire around the base of your run and I'd run one along the top as well to deter climbers. You'll need the plastic connectors to attach it to your fence. They attach to metal T posts but my husband just nails them on where we have wooden posts. Hot wire is an easy and very effective method of keeping critters away from and off of your fences and pens. Trapping works too but they have to go in the trap first and they just may decide it's more fun to go after your chickens.

If you don't want to attach the wire directly to your run you can also just string it on it's own fence of T posts set into the ground around your coop. In that case string several wires, starting near the ground and maybe 6 or 8 inches apart so paws or nose are bound to hit one at some point.

You might also consider installing hardware wire around the bottom part of your runs, maybe three foot up. That will also stop coon's from standing there snagging birds through the wire.

 

[centrarchid]

Additionally, care can be taken to ensure birds not roosting adjacent to fencing. Having chicks roost free and clear of fencing will reduce odds of loosing birds like with first chick. Despite my having other measures to keep varmints out I periodically go out at night and inspect roosting birds to make certain they are not roosting where all my exclusion efforts are nullified.