Are you not on any chicken social media groups? If you're paying someone else to build something with, uh, curb appeal — fully painted, metal roof, nice hardware — $20k is real easy.
And that's kinda crazy bad luck. Every story I recall reading of a mountain lion getting into a chicken enclosure built well enough to defend against a determined racoon or fox has been a young cat strolling through an open door, not forcing their way in.
Genuinely appreciated. I have lost many relatives and (human) friends in my life with causes ranging from murder to disease to suicide. The chickens are different, I think because I am completely responsible for their safety. They are true innocents and I screwed up.
> Every story I recall reading of a mountain lion getting into a chicken enclosure built well enough to defend against a determined racoon or fox has been a young cat strolling through an open door, not forcing their way in.
And same here. I didn't understand how strong the big cats are. Our Fort Knox is accessible only through a garage so that wasn't an issue.
Ah, I'm not social media apart from forums. I do watch a lot of coop and run builds on YouTube though. With that inspiration I bought a bunch of tools and am in the process of revamping my stuff to fit more with our house. It has the added benefit of making the chickens more a part of our little microecosystem as well since much of it is geared towards collecting their waste and pine flakes to make into compost. Even with all the tools added in I'm probably only at $2-3k.
I don't trust myself to get it right. This involved many bags of buried concrete for the main structure, special hardware cloth buried a foot down, expensive lumber during its peak prices during covid times, etc. I was running a faltering business at that time and was happy to delegate.