Build the Chicken Coop for the Raccoon, Not the Hen

Quick answer: Read your city code and HOA rules before you buy a single chick. Then build the coop with half-inch hardware cloth and a two-step latch, start three to five hens in spring, and accept that your first-year eggs will cost more than the grocery store's.

The first hen most new keepers lose doesn't die of old age or a cold snap. She dies on a warm night in June. A raccoon reaches through the chicken wire her owner trusted, or works the barrel bolt on the door the way you'd turn a doorknob.

Raccoons have hands. Plan accordingly.

Read the code before the hatchery catalog

Backyard poultry rules vary by city, county and neighborhood, and the differences are big. Search your municipal code online for "poultry," "fowl" or "livestock." Many cities file chickens under animal control rather than zoning. Look for:

• A cap on birds. Small numbers are common in town, and some lots get none at all.
• A rooster ban. This one shows up constantly. Roosters crow at all hours, not just at sunrise, and they're the fastest way to make an enemy over the fence.
• Setbacks. Plenty of codes require the coop to sit a set distance from property lines or a neighbor's house. On a narrow lot that can rule out the only spot that works.
• Permits. Some cities want a permit for the birds, and some treat a coop as an accessory structure.
• Slaughter rules. Some places allow keeping hens but ban processing them on site.

Then check your HOA covenants separately. An HOA can ban chickens even where the city allows them. If the answer comes by phone, get it in an email.

You don't need a rooster for eggs. Hens lay without one. A rooster only matters if you want fertilized eggs and chicks.

Tell your neighbors before the chicks arrive. Once the hens are laying, walk a dozen eggs over. People who get free eggs rarely call the city about the coop.

Wire it like you mean it

Chicken wire keeps chickens in. It doesn't keep anything out. Raccoons tear it, reach through it and pull birds apart against it. Use half-inch galvanized hardware cloth on every opening, including the vents and the windows. Fasten it with screws and fender washers or heavy fence staples, not a light-duty staple gun.

Diggers are next. Dogs, foxes and skunks go under. Either bury the hardware cloth a foot deep around the run, or lay a two-foot apron flat on the ground along the outside of the base, pinned down and covered with soil or pavers. The apron is easier on your back and works just as well. Animals dig at the wall, hit wire and give up.

Then fix the doors. A simple hook-and-eye or barrel bolt is a puzzle a raccoon solves in one night. Use a hasp with a spring-loaded carabiner clipped through it, or any latch that takes two separate motions to open.

Roof the run if you've got hawks or climbing predators. Netting stops a hawk. A solid roof or hardware cloth stops a raccoon.

And close the birds in at dusk, every night. An automatic coop door on a timer or light sensor costs real money and is worth every dollar the first time you're stuck at work past sunset.

For space, the common rule of thumb is about 4 square feet per bird inside the coop and 10 in the run, 8 to 10 inches of roost bar per bird and one nest box for every three or four hens. Put ventilation up high, above the roost. Keep drafts away from where they sleep.

What it actually costs

The coop is the biggest number by far. The cheap prefab kits at farm stores and big-box stores are usually thin wood with light wire. If you buy one, plan to re-skin it in hardware cloth and swap the latches before a bird ever goes in. A solid coop and run, bought or built, runs into the hundreds of dollars. A really good one gets into four figures. Hardware cloth costs more than you'd guess, and you'll need more of it than you planned.

Day-old chicks are cheap. Started pullets close to laying age cost more but skip the brooder stage. You'll also need a brooder, a heat source, a feeder, a waterer and bedding.

Feed is the line that never goes away. A laying hen eats roughly a quarter pound a day, so four hens go through a 50-pound bag of layer feed in about seven weeks.

Do the honest math and the first year's eggs cost several times what the store charges, even when store prices spike. If saving money is the only goal, buy eggs. What you're really buying is breakfast you raised yourself, a chore your kids can own, bug patrol and a steady supply of manure for the garden. Those are good reasons. Just don't tell your wife the hens are a money-saver.

Your zone changes the coop

Your hardiness zone matters for chickens as much as for tomatoes.

Cold country (roughly zones 3 to 5): Choose heavy, cold-hardy breeds. Buff Orpingtons, Australorps and Plymouth Rocks all handle winter well, and Wyandottes have small rose combs that resist frostbite. Moisture is the real enemy, more than cold, so keep the high vents open in January. Skip the heat lamp. They get knocked over and start coop fires every winter. A heated waterer base so the water doesn't freeze solid does far more good.

Hot country (roughly zones 8 to 10): Heat kills chickens faster than cold does. You need shade over the run, cross-breezes in the coop and cool water in more than one spot. Lighter breeds like Leghorns handle heat better. A hen panting with her wings held out from her body is overheating. Get her into shade now.

Buy in spring, eat eggs in late summer

Farm stores run their chick sales in spring. Chicks live in a brooder in the garage or basement at about 95°F the first week, and you drop the temperature about five degrees a week until they're feathered out, around six weeks old.

Most hens start laying somewhere around 18 to 22 weeks. Chicks bought in March are laying by late summer.

Then the days get shorter. Hens need around 14 hours of light to lay steadily, so production slows in late fall, often stops in winter, and most hens molt and drop feathers in autumn too. Some keepers add a light on a timer to keep eggs coming. Others give the birds the winter off. Both are defensible.

One catch with chicks: sexing day-olds isn't perfect. If your city bans roosters, have a plan for the "hen" who starts crowing at four months. Buying point-of-lay pullets avoids most of that surprise.

The eggs, and the hard question

A good layer in her prime gives you around five eggs a week, so four hens keep a family stocked in spring and summer. Output drops each year after the first couple. A hen can live many years past her best laying.

Decide now what happens to older hens. You can keep them as retirees or put them in the stew pot. Either is honest. Just decide before the kids name them.

Collect eggs every day. Broken eggs teach hens to eat eggs, and that habit is hard to break. Put out a dish of oyster shell so shells stay strong. Unwashed eggs keep a natural coating called the bloom. Once you wash an egg, refrigerate it.

The CDC's advice for backyard flocks is plain. Wash your hands after touching the birds, the eggs or anything in the coop. Supervise kids under five. Don't snuggle or kiss the chickens. Keep wild birds away from the feed, and if birds start dying suddenly, call your state veterinarian or the USDA. Bird flu is reportable.

What goes wrong in year one

Rats. Spilled feed brings them. Store feed in a metal can with a tight lid and pull the feeder at night. The same rules from compost that doesn't feed the rats apply here.

The garden. Hens scratch seedlings out of the ground in minutes. Fence your raised beds in spring, then let the flock in after harvest to clean up bugs and spent plants.

Fresh manure. It's too strong to put straight on plants and it'll burn them. Compost it with the coop bedding and give it time before it goes on the beds.

The broody hen. One day a hen will flatten herself in the nest box and growl at you. Without fertile eggs nothing will hatch, so lift her out and block the box for a few days.

The first egg will be small, a little misshapen and laid somewhere ridiculous. Your kid will carry it into the kitchen like it's the Hope Diamond.

That's what the coop money bought.