fancy chicken coop

Good job on sending that mink to the happy hunting ground. That is a pampered poultry palace if I’ve ever seen one. One thing we did to our coop that seems to help, or nothing has tried to enter, is not to use a ramp to the trap door. The chickens can jump in and out easily. Our door is about a foot off the ground and the center rail is cantilevered over the support post to make an overhang. So far so good. We are really careful to shut all accesses every night. Again, so far so good, one coon can wreck that record! The close proximity to the wooded area is an aggravating factor too. Probably nothing to be done about that!
Great looking young uns. Keep up the good work. BTKS

-- "Man's ingenuity has outrun his intelligence" (Joseph Wood Krutch)

That is a lovely coop. i have been looking into keeping chickens. one thing i have read for foxes is to have a tunnel with a 180 degree turn. so it backs round it’s self. apparently foxes cant do that in small chicken size tunnels. dont know if that is possible with mink. I am guessing not, but it might be worth reading up on.

I noticed you have a double door into the cage area. be careful there. I found when i breed chipmunks that things can part the doors just enough or chew the corners quite well. ( All right that was chipmunk escaping, But the princable is the same weather you want to go in or out)
We solved it by having a plate on the inside that the door rested against. i guess like a normal house door.

nice house! i’m constantly terrified about what might get into my two chickens. i can’t believe something got into your enclosure – just how/where did it break through?

That is really, really nice. Great yard too!

-- Ohh mann...pancakes and boobies...I'll bet that's what Heaven is like! ♣ ♣ ♣ ♣

We buried pressure treated 2” x 6” at grade – attached to the fence posts around the entire yard perimeter. On the inside of the yard – we placed football sized basalt rocks – to drop down onto any tunneling varmits. On the outside of the yard we built a 2’ wide crushed rock walkway around the entire perimeter – the raccoons never did dig in…although we could find signs of them trying.

The full grown mink was able to squeeze it’s body between the 2” x 2” mesh. One night after it killed 17 hens – we heard the mink scream when it squeezed back out of a raccoon sized live trap. On the second night after – we used a double opening skunk sized live trap & bagged this beast for good.

The baby chicks were mail-ordered from here: http://www.mcmurrayhatchery.com/index.html

ugh. the sad truth is that pretty much everything wants chicken for dinner. so is that why you have a narrow mesh fence now?

what a great chicken coop – and garden!!

We have a pack of coyotes that visit the neighbour’s chicken coop on a regular basis. No losses yet and I do enjoy listening to them howl in the middle of the night.

Now, if i could only figure out how to keep the chickens from scratching up all my plants when they are on their daily walkabout. ...
(We do enjoy the visit however. They are funny to watch.)

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

This really nice!

A Mink in Port Orchard? Wow! I’m learning so much more about this place every day. My Girlfriend loves the Chicken coop and wants me to build one now. lol.

-- Are you going to use that piece of scrap?