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Ok, assuming I can gauruntee to make my coup fox and rat proof would you recomend still closing the pop hole at night or is it ok to leave it open. My thinking is that I can have a lie in during the summer till about 6 am and the chickens can sort themselves out in the morning.

Secondly I've seen a number of coups having deep base boards along the base of the coup. Any thoughts on what these are for?

Ta muchy,

BA.

Always leave ours open and the chickens are always up before me.

Used to leave ours open but we lost one to Mr Fox so it is now closed. They get out in the morning when we are ready which may be 6am or 9am.

we close ours at night, and then let them out first thing. a little bit more fox protection, but foxes come in the day time too. mostly we do this so the cockerel crows in the house rather than outside, in the hope it will be less annoying to our neighbours

obviously he crows all day long, but only outside of the house at a decent hour

I've always put them away(though as shown above any sort of chicken tractor means they dont have to be) but I always get up by 5, and have a siesta after lunch.

Thanks for the advice. My coup will be built from 18mm osb board and be enclosed in the run made with this type of mesh http://www.meshdirect.co.uk/Wire-Mesh-1 ... -c-24.html for the run which I believe is small enough to stop rats getting through and as it's galvanised or stainless then even foxes can't bite through it.

Speaking of filling themselves full of grass and worms my two are so bleeding greedy that they stand in front of the fork waiting for it to turn the soil over. So much for gardening in a way that encourages worms only to have the good work done in by my two cheeky girls....

Big Al wrote:Thanks for the advice. My coup will be built from 18mm osb board and be enclosed in the run made with this type of mesh http://www.meshdirect.co.uk/Wire-Mesh-1 ... -c-24.html for the run which I believe is small enough to stop rats getting through and as it's galvanised or stainless then even foxes can't bite through it.

Yeah that should be fine, my Website removed by Admin please see our rules re advertising is pretty similar.

we close ours at night in case of foxes penetrating the outer fence.

also have a constant war with rats tunnelling underneath the coop, undermining everything.... digging the outer mesh fence 1 foot down into the soil is not enough to stop them. I hate them. Of course they could have have walked in through the gate when it was open and started their tunnels from the inside... how do you tell?