Fox and raccoon proof chicken coop

[4horses]

Anyone have pictures or designs? I would like to get some chickens, but the coop needs to be a fort knox. My neighbors tried having chickens, and they never lasted more than a year.

I had a raccoon or squirrel chew through my solid wood birdhouse and eat the babies- my poor bluebirds. I was so disappointed. The house wrens are nested in my cat house of all places. I’m not sure how safe they are but they have eggs in the nest and usually they are successful - they come back to my house every year. At least they didn’t nest in the garage (or the sliding barn door like last year).

[2DogsFarm]

My coop is a repurposed metal garden shed.
Previous owners of the property kept chickens & turkeys. The rear 1/4 of the shed is walled off & from the residue on the walls & smell, was used as a smokehouse.
Advantages are:
*With a 7’ ceiling, I can comfortably stand up in the coop.
*Coop is floored with patio cinder block pavers. Too heavy for anything to tunnel beneath - at least not in the 10yrs I’ve kept chickens in it.
*Small (2’ wide X 5’ high)door added to the rear, leads to a fenced yard. They lined this screen door - that opens into the coop - with both chickenwire & hardware cloth. The piece cut out from the shed wall to allow for the screened door opens out & can be closed in cold weather.
This means in hot weather I can leave the solid part of the door open for ventilation & nothing that might climb the fence gets in.
*When I replaced the fencing, a foot of chicken wire was buried, facing outward, so anything trying to dig under the fence gets stopped.
*To deter hawks from diving into the large fenced yard, I have run baling twine in a crisscross pattern across the top. I read somewhere that hawks see the pattern as solid. Again: in 10yrs, no chicken lost when contained in the yard.
I first used deer netting for this, but snowload brought it down. The current twine has been up for nearly 5yrs, snow falls through.
*I added a small screened, double-hung window & covered that with a hardware cloth grid so it can be left partway or fully open for ventilation.

Not Fort Knox, but in 10yrs, the only hen I lost in the coop was when I forgot to close the screened door & a raccoon got in.

[trubandloki]

Rule #1 of making a raccoon proof coop is that chicken wire is not the product to use.

[DinkyDonk]

My husband has a business associate who keeps 30 chickens–he bought one of the smaller shipping containers as a chicken coop and retrofitted it…it IS the Ft Knox of the chicken world!

[EVneo]

We’re in process of building our coop - we’re building this lil guy for our coop https://www.construct101.com/chicken-coop-plans-design-2/ but our run is going to be longer, and go under the coop as well. We’re using hardware cloth. I’ve read to bury an apron of hardware cloth underground, but what I’m doing instead is wrapping the bottom of the run in hardware cloth and then using pea gravel and sand in the run. We’re also toying with the idea of running polytape at predator height. We have a small part of our yard fenced in and TONS of tree cover, so I’m hoping they’ll be fine to free range there when we’re outside with them. Otherwise, they’ll have more than enough room in their run. Just ordered my chicks this morning! 4 little Golden Buffs coming my way. Can’t wait!

[HungarianHippo]

I mean, there’s a million ways to do it, but basically, the structure needs to not have any gaps (weasels can slip through a one inch hole), and it needs to be strong enough that it can’t be pried open or chewed through. Raccoons are incredibly strong – safe to assume that if you can bend or pry it open, they can too.

Only wire I’d use is hardware cloth, and I highly recommend buying an electric or pneumatic construction stapler. Makes installation so, so much easier and you’ll get a nice tight staple.

It should have a floor if at all possible, and if not, you should bury an apron of hardware cloth. (Strip away an 18" area of sod and the top couple inches of soil all around the coop, then lay down the wire apron and cover back up with soil and replace the sod. Predators will generally dig at the base of the structure (and hit the apron and give up).

It’s a pain, and hardware cloth is $$$$, but chicken coops are one of those things where you get what you pay for.

[Simkie]

I have pictures of my coop on page four of the other chicken thread. I have a game cam watching my coop, and have seen fox and raccoons come check it out. They can’t get in, and leave.

It’s a prebuilt shed. There’s a hardware mesh apron all around the coop and run. Windows are covered with hardware mesh. Latches are backed up with snaps or carabineers.

If a bear wanted in, a bear would get in. But anything else…we’re pretty well set

[She_s_Pure_Gold]

Check out backyardchickens.com, soooo many helpful resources there!!!

[secuono]

Half inch holes/gaps a rat will fit through and kill birds or injure them.

Two-three cattle panels cut & bent, wired together. Wrap in hardware cloth, bottom, too. Frame the door opening. Keeps out rats, mice, snakes, weasels, fox, coons.
My problem, in the end, was daytime predators. I gave up on them.

[trubandloki]

@secuono

Half inch holes/gaps a rat will fit through and kill birds or injure them.

Having had pet rats for some time - half inch holes are considered rat proof, even for female rats. 1" holes are not rat proof.

[TMares]

This is a fantastic example of a predator proof coop. Ours is not nearly so pretty, but functionally the same.

http://www.thegardencoop.com/large-chicken-coop-plans.html#q8