My chickens have PTSD

[Brisephine]

Short story is we lost 8 chickens in about a week to a raccoon. The coop has been repaired (he racoon pulled the metal covering off the eave and climbed in and out) since them my chickens won't sleep in the coop (except for two salmon faverolle hens bevause they're cute but kinda dumb) and I don't blame them. I have anxiety everytime I open the door myself terrified I find another dead or half dead chicken..

I'm not in a position to buy or build a new coop right now. A couple nights in a row I was able to lure them in with snacks and shut the door but that hasn't worked lately
Does anyone have any ideas how to convince them to sleep in the coop and not in my garage or grape trellis? I thought maybe if we did a small update of the coop it might help? I'm really at a loss.

Photo is of the unfinished coop for reference, it was converted from an old shed.

 

[nuthatched]

Keep putting them in, they'll forget.
You need some more ventilation in there. :]

 

[SamLockwood]

Short story is we lost 8 chickens in about a week to a raccoon. The coop has been repaired (he racoon pulled the metal covering off the eave and climbed in and out) since them my chickens won't sleep in the coop (except for two salmon faverolle hens bevause they're cute but kinda dumb) and I don't blame them. I have anxiety everytime I open the door myself terrified I find another dead or half dead chicken..

I'm not in a position to buy or build a new coop right now. A couple nights in a row I was able to lure them in with snacks and shut the door but that hasn't worked lately
Does anyone have any ideas how to convince them to sleep in the coop and not in my garage or grape trellis? I thought maybe if we did a small update of the coop it might help? I'm really at a loss.

Photo is of the unfinished coop for reference, it was converted from an old shed.

It's not really PTSD, it's a learned survival behavior. Bad things happened in that coop and they don't think it's safe any more. I had a flock get massacred in its coop a few years ago, and when I built the new coop & run set-up the survivors of that flock never slept inside the coops, but in the run no matter what the weather.

Weird thing is that because those survivors became the matriarchs of the new birds I introduced, sleeping "outside" (the run is fully enclosed) became a status symbol. Particularly the roosting bar occupied by the "mean girls" (even though now only one of those old biddies is left). On the plus side I know what the pecking order is at any given moment with the chickens when the go to sleep at night.