matchmeadeinheaven
In the Brooder
I came out back early in the summer to check the chickens as we do every AM. I found that overnight something had tried to dig under the coop and appeared to have been successful at entering. We have had chickens for a few years and it continues to be a fun learning experience. The predator had moved a couple of the bricks out that we had the coop sitting on to make it level. I caught the details on the YouTube video below if interested.
Our current coop has wire cloth mesh on the ground about 2′ around the coop to lessen the risk and hopefully prevent this. Keep this in mind with chicken coops. In the video below I show that we use landscaping timbers, rocks, and bricks around our older coops and runs as a wider barrier at the bottom. It has worked, but overnight in this instance it had failed. The good news in this case is they got in, but we shut our chickens up every night with a chicken door on the coop so no harm to our girls in this instance.
When I came out and saw this type of damage, I needed to find out what is going on at night. So what I purchased first was a Tasco game camera. It runs on batteries and uses an SD card. This was under $30 from WalMart and easy to install and setup. I did also purchase some tree mounts from Amazon to mount instead of using the strap that came with the camera. They came in a 3 pack which allowed me to move the camera around very easily. All I had to do is turn the camera on at night when I shut them up for the evening in the coop. Then, the next morning turn it off and pop out the SD card and review what was captured
Has others done something similar to their coop/run to verify what is happening when we are away? Would be interested to see if anyone does anything different or better than the game camera.
Our current coop has wire cloth mesh on the ground about 2′ around the coop to lessen the risk and hopefully prevent this. Keep this in mind with chicken coops. In the video below I show that we use landscaping timbers, rocks, and bricks around our older coops and runs as a wider barrier at the bottom. It has worked, but overnight in this instance it had failed. The good news in this case is they got in, but we shut our chickens up every night with a chicken door on the coop so no harm to our girls in this instance.
When I came out and saw this type of damage, I needed to find out what is going on at night. So what I purchased first was a Tasco game camera. It runs on batteries and uses an SD card. This was under $30 from WalMart and easy to install and setup. I did also purchase some tree mounts from Amazon to mount instead of using the strap that came with the camera. They came in a 3 pack which allowed me to move the camera around very easily. All I had to do is turn the camera on at night when I shut them up for the evening in the coop. Then, the next morning turn it off and pop out the SD card and review what was captured
Has others done something similar to their coop/run to verify what is happening when we are away? Would be interested to see if anyone does anything different or better than the game camera.
