Animal broke in

[Jen-the-Hen]

Hi all -

This morning I went to move our girls' feed under a roof since there's rain coming today, and sadly discovered that our NH red was dead and mostly eaten, our leghorn totally missing, and our black girl (not sure her breed) alive, but missing a few feathers on her back, and seemed dazed and confused, in addition to not being very excited about the scratch I threw down for her.

FWIW, we live in the southern California suburbs, and in 15+ years of keeping chickens, we have never had a predator problem. In fact, I encourage the neighbors' cat to come into the run and hunt rodents. (We don't do chicks, only pullets and larger.) Once, I found him snoozing in the nest boxes

I did see a coyote in our neighborhood a few weeks ago, so I suspect they or their kin would seem to be the likely culprit. We're too far away from wild areas to worry about cougars or bears or anything. There's a short run of ~6' block wall fence that the predator likely jumped to get into the run, and the 3 girls had made a habit of sleeping on the apex of the roof of the coop, so they'd likely have been pretty visible and exposed. Coyotes could certainly make the jump, I understand. They could have also hopped on top of our trash cans first and traveled along the wall to the run opening too.

The only other animals I really see around our area are raccoons, skunks, hawks, etc. Doubt it was a hawk since it was at night, or maybe early evening, and I've never seen one around here that I felt was big enough to take a chicken anyway. I doubt a raccoon could have done this much damage.

Anyway, I've never felt the need to secure the run 100%. Until now. I suppose I'll have to, though. I'd like to leave an opening big enough for the cat to get in and keep the run free of rodents, but keep anything bigger out. Given the geometry of our situation, I'm considering an automatic door to close off the more open area of the run, as I'd prefer not to have a bunch of wire fencing visible from the front of the house (and rather not attach anything to our neighbor's garage, which would also be necessary.

Anyway, thanks for letting me vent. Any recs for a decent automatic coop door? I can pipe out electricity if necessary. Probably better and more reliable than running it on solar with a battery. Possible to get a door that's big enough for chickens but too small for coyotes? I imagine those fellers can squeeze down pretty small if they want to...

Thanks

Sorry to hear about you loosing two of your girls! No wonder the last one standing looked shell-shocked! She will be really missing her companions, poor thing.

 

[gdgross]

I always recommend predator proof coops and runs so predators have to work for their next meal just like us. Once they get a free meal they're hard to get rid of. ( coyotes live a long time and are hard to trap) Sorry for your loss!

Yeah, now that I have the opportunity, I'm reworking the run and making it predator proof.

 

[Island Coppers]

gdgross,​

We have both coyotes and raccoon here. The thing about raccoons is that they can climb trees and chicken wire even hardware cloth. And they will go to great lengths for their next meal. Any hole a cat can get in a raccoon can also get in. Good luck with the "new" set up.

 

[McChooky]

Foxes and coyotes kill their prey and carry it to a safe spot to eat whereas raccoons eat them on site. All of them can squeeze thru a 3-4" opening or a chicken door so you don't want to leave your door open at night.A raccoon will sometimes kill everything and partially eat one before carrying it off. The males can reach 25-40 lbs and are strong.You need child proof latches on nest boxes and doors.Good luck!

 

[Big Doggie]

Hi all -

This morning I went to move our girls' feed under a roof since there's rain coming today, and sadly discovered that our NH red was dead and mostly eaten, our leghorn totally missing, and our black girl (not sure her breed) alive, but missing a few feathers on her back, and seemed dazed and confused, in addition to not being very excited about the scratch I threw down for her.

FWIW, we live in the southern California suburbs, and in 15+ years of keeping chickens, we have never had a predator problem. In fact, I encourage the neighbors' cat to come into the run and hunt rodents. (We don't do chicks, only pullets and larger.) Once, I found him snoozing in the nest boxes

I did see a coyote in our neighborhood a few weeks ago, so I suspect they or their kin would seem to be the likely culprit. We're too far away from wild areas to worry about cougars or bears or anything. There's a short run of ~6' block wall fence that the predator likely jumped to get into the run, and the 3 girls had made a habit of sleeping on the apex of the roof of the coop, so they'd likely have been pretty visible and exposed. Coyotes could certainly make the jump, I understand. They could have also hopped on top of our trash cans first and traveled along the wall to the run opening too.

The only other animals I really see around our area are raccoons, skunks, hawks, etc. Doubt it was a hawk since it was at night, or maybe early evening, and I've never seen one around here that I felt was big enough to take a chicken anyway. I doubt a raccoon could have done this much damage.

Anyway, I've never felt the need to secure the run 100%. Until now. I suppose I'll have to, though. I'd like to leave an opening big enough for the cat to get in and keep the run free of rodents, but keep anything bigger out. Given the geometry of our situation, I'm considering an automatic door to close off the more open area of the run, as I'd prefer not to have a bunch of wire fencing visible from the front of the house (and rather not attach anything to our neighbor's garage, which would also be necessary.

Anyway, thanks for letting me vent. Any recs for a decent automatic coop door? I can pipe out electricity if necessary. Probably better and more reliable than running it on solar with a battery. Possible to get a door that's big enough for chickens but too small for coyotes? I imagine those fellers can squeeze down pretty small if they want to...

Thanks

I have the Omlet Door and it is battery powered. I change the batteries once a year. And recently I added hardware fabric on the bottom of the coop. Keeps the rats from tunneling in.

 

[gdgross]

I have the Omlet Door and it is battery powered. I change the batteries once a year. And recently I added hardware fabric on the bottom of the coop. Keeps the rats from tunneling in.

ooh nice idea.

When I first moved into my house I was doing some digging or planting or something around the perimeter fence and discovered some buried hardware cloth that extended maybe 8" or so below ground around, following the perimeter fence. I thought, what a stupid thing to do, and I ripped it all out.

Six months later, the gophers returned.

I'll check out the omlet door, thx for the rec!