Your fortress has never been breached? What are your safety measures?

[kuntrygirl]

I don't have a fortress but I do have a few coops and chickens houses that have never had any predators get in. I give 110% credit to my 24/ security guard below.

Security guard. Sleeps during the day and works at night. Works for food.Currently guarding 2 roosters (back view) from freezer camp.

Here are a few pics of some of my coops/chickens houses and aviaries. Raised coops, boards at bottoms and plenty chicken wire, hardware cloth and closing and locking coop doors at night.

 

[patandchickens]

Your setup sounds very well thought out and securely designed to me! I am of the camp that believes it is foolish to consider anything *truly* 10% predatorproof, but I think you are in better shape than about 99.5% of the people on this forum, probably even a bit more secure than my setup and I have tried reasonably hard on it

I'd like to consider electric fencing, but I'm not sure about the expenditure, or if it's semi useless since a raccoon can hop over my single strand to climb?

Honestly if your whole run is roofed, I am not sure it would make a DIFFERENCE if raccoons climb up there. But, as far as 'hopping over my single strand', you have two very solid options around that if you DID want to add electric -- either a) you just run a coupla strands at different heights which for something the size of the coop does not make any more impact on the charger than just a single strand does, or b) make sure your single wire is high enough raccons canNOT go over it, 8-10" or so. Raccoons are pretty totally unable to jump.

That said, I am going to go back to my first sentence of the previous paragraph, and say that if it were me I would not be bothering with electric until/unless I had some real reason to expect problems.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat​

 

[Wink]

Is 19 gauge HC really lightweight? I couldn't have afforded 16 or 12, and I had a hard time finding it locally.....had to buy my 19 stuff online just to get a good deal! I figured that if 19 was really that weak, a lot of people on this site would always say "don't use chicken wire and don't use 19 gauge"?!

I have pics, but I figure I will present all during the grand unveiling of my coop! ;-)

 

[dfvellone]

The floor of my coop is a concrete slab with an 8" block wall that the coop walls are built on. The exterior walls are tightly sided (board and batten) with full 1" hemlock and interior is plywood -very tight. Window openings are covered well with hardware cloth and the door seals tightly against well-fitted stops.

I also have a 24/7 outdoor dog who doesn't kill chickens and plays probably the biggest role in keeping predators away- we live in the woods here with plenty of predators around.

 

[bantyshanty]

Quote:
WOW, theoldchick, that's a pretty impressive fortress job! I may use some of your great ideas in my future coop & run improvements. Thanks for sharing!

 

[elmo]

Quote:
19 gauge is thin enough so I can bend it with my fingers; I can't do that with the 16 gauge, so there's that much difference. I think if a raccoon could get their teeth on the wire to start gnawing it, they probably could work their way through it with time, but if the wire spacing is 1/2" by 1/2", they're only going to be able to get part of their front teeth on it so the gnawing job is going to be a pretty tough slog. Honestly, as I look at my run, I see the places where the wire is attached to the frame as the weaker area than the wire, itself. We do lock our chickens inside a coop at night, and the wire covering the vents and windows in the coop is 16 gauge...just in case. If I could have afforded the price difference, I would have used the 16 gauge for the run as well.

 

[theoldchick]

Thanks! I'll forward the compliment to Carpenter #1. This is the first coop he ever built. Although at first he thought my husband and I were nuts for wanting such a fortress for our chickens, he seemed to have a better understanding once he completed the project.

 

[Robert Boyd]

I have coyotes at my back fence and by my coop all the time.

I dont know how secure this actually is, but my run(pen) is built out of Landscape timbers, cattle panels ,horse fence and T posts,

bottom 6 foot is wrapped in chicken wire, and then from there up is wrapped in 14 guage welded wire,

its built like a dome, measures 20 ft by 16 ft and is 8 ft tall.


It may be ugly but it sure works well for this poor boy:^}

 

[kuntrygirl]

Quote:
As long as it works for you is all that matters. A coop can cost $5,000.00 to build but if it's not functional and can't keep anything out, it's worthless and useless. Some of the prettiest coops are worthless if it can't protect your animals.

 

[Robert Boyd]

Quote:
As long as it works for you is all that matters. A coop can cost $5,000.00 to build but if it's not functional and can't keep anything out, it's worthless and useless. Some of the prettiest coops are worthless if it can't protect your animals.

thanks If i ever figure out the picture thingy, ill post pictures, but every thing looks like an old run down farm around my place:^}