Killer Raccoons

Once the sun sets I make a few trips to the yard to check in on things and I cannot go to bed until I check on the girls. I make sure everything is closed and locked and more  importantly that everyone is accounted for. I do this because I had three close calls. I once found PeeWee out of the coop in the dark, and twice I left the egg door wide open. These were major screw ups that could have resulted in gruesome losses.

This year I have noticed pieces from a cracked mirror making their way into the yard as well as broken colored glass. Sometimes these things are on our patio table along with random nuts and bolts and recently found a small piece of some doohickie from some motor. Yesterday my  neighbor told me she found raccoons shaking down her peach tree. She said they scared her around 10:30 at night when she came out to find three of them in her front yard. She said they scampered away from our homes and into the storm sewer. I saw two raccoons make their way into the creek bed next to our house but never one in our backyard.

I guess it has been raccoons leaving all those junky treasures around the yard. I wonder if my frequent visits to the backyard will keep them from my chickens? Only once have I discovered tampering with the coop. It was not the coop I currently own but a Chick-N-Hutch I ordered online. It looked as if a shovel had gone all around the coop. The discovery was eerie and I was creeped out. This incident immediately made me purchase the predator proof mobile chicken coop I have now. 

I have tried to insulate the coop this summer using layers of painters drop cloth to cover the roof and backside of the coop. It has worked because the temperature in the coop manages to stay significantly low.  The heavy canvas drop clothes also cover tiny spaces between the roof and sides of the coop. Spaces small enough for a raccoon hand to get into and try and pry the roof off my coop. If they don't kill my chickens they'll at least cause several hundred dollars worth of damage. I have seen no signs of tampering so far. Maybe the fan inside the coop frightens them? Whatever the case, raccoons have been spotted even closer than before so I feel I need to keep vigilant. How much more vigilant can I be though? Shotgun and a sleeping bag? EEK!