A missing post from early summer 2011... but still the answers are unresolved :
We need to design a more secure chicken pen. And build it. Something that is raccoon and fox proof.
We're planning to use part of the existing equipment shed ( the "red shed"). It came with the property and it's about 100 ft from the front of the house, near the bottom of the driveway's last hill. There's a nice Pawlonia tree that is growing out of the middle of the back of the shed and we want to incorporate that for shade. The tree is on the north side of the shed, which is open to the south.
The idea is to build a chicken coop inside the shed about in the middle (it is about 28 ft deep and 70 ft long) so we can still get through with the lawn tractor and other equipment. There is a partition wall that was designed to be a horse stall, but then I decided I wanted the horses' housing in a more central area of the pasture. The stall areas are now used to store hay up on pallets.
The current plan would include an inside chicken yard between the side of the coop and the existing north side of the red shed. One side will have the partition wall that is already there. It is about 5 ft high. We will need to either build another partition wall on the other side of the chicken coop or frame it and screen it. This will give the birds a protected area to get out and move around even if the weather's bad.
The major design questions here are twofold -
1 - High question - How high up do we need to frame and screen to keep out marauders?
-- The shed roof is about 27 feet high in the middle. It is made of galvanized metal. If we don't go up to the roof with the side screening, then what do we cover the top with to keep birds in and marauders out? It will have an area of approx 14ft x 16ft, so we would need something that can be large enough to span that. The roof on the chicken coop will probably be 10 ft towards the north side (closest to the indoor pen) and slope to 8 ft on the south side (exposed to weather and where we would enter).
-- It would be cheaper to only screen up 10ft or so on the sides then span the area, but would raccoons get up on the posts and fall through the top if we used some deer netting like the plastic kind you can get that is 10 ft high?
2 - Low question - How to keep things from digging in from below and provide good footing for the birds that is easy to clean. Two related issues, actually.
--Digging: I was thinking of getting some hog panels and laying them flat on the ground - will those openings keep out most critters other than mice (haven't seen evidence of rats)? Or can a raccoon or skunk get through the openings? If that will work, then I would run hardware cloth up the side of the partition wall and under the hog panels, wired together. Already plan to use hardware cloth along the bottom of the chicken coop and will just extend the hog wire under that as well.
-- Footing: I am thinking perhaps put some CR 6 on top of the hog panels, cover with geo fabric and then put about 3 inches of sand on top of the cloth. CR 6 = drainage in case of heavy rainfall. I noticed that during Irene and Lee, we had a lot of water move through the shed since it's at the foot of a hill (one of the reasons the horses are NOT stalled here) Then the fabric will keep the sand from mixing with the CR 6. Sand will be easy to clean with a rake and give the birds something to scratch and dust bathe in. Or would stone dust be better? I have to get some more bluestone dust and CR 6 for the horse's heavy use area and shed, so I could get enough for both uses if stone dust would work. Although sand would look nicer (lighter color) and is what I was planning to use in the outside pen.
Is this overkill?
