The Penetrable Chicken Coop

If you are likely to become attached to your pets, chickens in my case, you might be better off not buying non-free range non-flying chickens. Whatever you may have read about cooped chickens being safer from predators is not true. Is there such thing as an inpenetrable coop at a reasonable cost for chicken ownership on a small scale?

Still trying to figure out which animal in Alabama broke into the coop. There was a hole large enough for me to climb through. The hole was at waist level. Scratch marks were all up and down the side of the coop. The inside bridge where the chickens walk up into the coop from their run was broken, so the animal was heavy. The animal only killed the chickens and didn't really eat them.

• RACOON: Most likely candidate at this point based on climbing abilities and claw marks. I think they eat chickens and maybe even chew through wood


• FOX: Not sure what fox marks would look like, but don't think they can climb and aren't big enough to chew a hole at waist level


• DOG: Claw marks don't look like any dog I've ever seen but the fact that the animal only killed them and didn't eat them leads me to believe it's a domesticated animal, unless the wild animal became spooked and ran off.


• RATS: Maybe the rat chewed the hole and some other animal got in? I hadnt' seen any rats around before now, but they might have wanted some chicken foodies.


• BADGER: Do they even live in Alabama? I don't know much about these animals anyway

How exactly do you prevent an animal from chewing through wood to break into a coop?

• Build a metal coop? I guess this is the best solution as far as coop structural integrity goes.


• Put hardware wire around the whole outside of the wooden coop? This just doesn't sound attractive at all. Not that the coop I had was attractive (before the hole), but I was at least TRYING to make it attractive. I just happened to be unsuccessful.


• Use the hardest and thickest plywood (I went on the cheap side). Can they still chew through this too, whatever it is? The wood was new, so it hadn't rotted.


• Build an electric fence around it? This sounds like a lot of work for a couple of chickens.
  
• Have a watch dog? This would probably work, but there's probably a bit involved in training a dog not to eat your own chickens. Maybe if you buy it as a puppy while you have chickens, but how do you keep the chickens alive while you train the dog???




• Have more feral variety of chickens that can fly well. These are typically chickens that are better for eggs than for meat, but that's fine with me. I didn't want to butcher my chickens anyway. This type chicken will definitely have to wawit until I move to the country-side and can let them free-range though

It's a bit depressing to say the list. Probably spent several hundred dollars at this point. The coop is ruined (and useless to begin with apparently) and no more chickens.

How in the world do small timers like myself have affordable urban chickens? I really would rather spend less than $500 in initial startup to have these animals. Just have a trained watch dog I guess.