Idyllic things do seem to be transient, don't they?
There are some things I really miss about living in the country, but over all, I am better off in the city.
What would work in a chicken coop wouldn't work for wild birds. The best thing I've seen so far was a hen keeper who built a grain bin into the wall of the coop. He could load it from outside and it would gather lower down on the inside. Now if your coop has no entry for the mice/rats/snakes, that might just work! I plan to deliver their grain when I go out to put them inside for the night - so they'll COME inside when I need them to. And I plan to only give them the quantity they need for 24 hours.
BUT I am continuing to watch the chicken chats and magazines to see what people say about what works. Will be awhile before I can even afford the materials to build, so I have time to gain from others' experience.
New Cardinal Family - Part 2 in Series
Interesting. If you can truly make the enclosure so tight that rats & snakes cannot get in, that just may work.
It may sound as though I live in the country, what with all the birds, raccoons, opossums, and even a small area of forest, but actually I live in the city of Charleston - actually w/in city limits. Of course, Charleston is not a huge metropolis. Still, for many years I felt as though my neighbors' houses were in my yard. Our houses, although free standing, are so close that I find the narrow strip of lawn on either side of my house almost too skinny to mow and more of a nuisance than anything.
I grew up in a rural area, so when house shopping I found yards here almost claustrophobic. It was for that reason that I chose a house on a lot with adjoining forest. That way I would have the illusion of some privacy on at least one side of my house/yard. Were it not for my backyard privacy fence & the forest, I would never get away with some of the things I do, like feeding wildlife and growing a veritable jungle. The HOA here is quite strict, but the forest and fence obscure their view of my backyard. I pay a landscaper to keep the front yard 'properly' manicured, so they don't bother me, mostly.
A few years ago the city announced a major building project (multi-million dollar houses, and a park) near me. The blue prints showed that they planned to put 'green strips' behind my house (where the forest is now), leaving only a few feet of trees between our yards and the green strips. I hated the idea for many reasons and was heartbroken at the idea of 'my' wildlife friends loosing their territory back there. Plus I figured the critters would no longer have access to my yard once the green strips were put in. The city held meetings with homeowners, and the builder brought in heavy equipment.
Everything was in order to begin the project when suddenly the economy went belly up and the housing market went south. That brought the whole development project to a screeching halt. It hasn't been mentioned since. The heavy equipment is gone; there is no sign that development was ever planned; and the wildlife still enjoy their home behind me. It was perhaps the only positive thing to come out of the economic mess. Now it's possible that project will never happen, or if it does it will be so far in the future as to be of no consequence to me. (The project was scheduled to take 2 decades to complete anyhow. If they don't start it for a decade or so...)
But, yes, I live in the city of Charleston. I just managed to build myself a very tiny piece of country here in the city and hide it behind a tall fence. If the HOA knew about my little Eden, they would probably go berserk.
Good luck with your project. If you keep in mind that rats can get through very small crevices, your plan sounds doable.
Coop tight as a house! New structure, planned well!
Here in Pittsburgh, there is a lot of very steep ground that was never developed. My backyard is right up on a "finger" of wildness conected to the VERY wild (deer, turkey, raccoon, groundhogs, etc... I'm not positive there aren't coyotes out there...) steep area just South of me. That was part of the reason I chose this 1920 house when I came here. The bedroom window is what really sold it - faces the downhill slope of the backyard, from over where the basement door opens up on the downslope (it's underground in the front) It's an excellent wildlife and/or garden view for me AND for cats!
But I digress - I think the best thing to do is PRESERVE a "green strip" when a development is planned not FELL A STAND OF NATIVE WOODS to put in walking paths for heaven's sake! That said, I knew someone in Davis, CA whose house had a back gate to a large green strip (narrow path paved for jogging/biking) and it was wonderful. But again, the green strip was PRESERVED, not fabricated.
crittergarden,
Your house and view sound very nice. Because the houses here are so close together, I don't feel comfortable leaving my side windows open much, and my front view (of the street and more houses isn't that great); however, the great room on the back of my house is another story. The great room is 2-stories high - the ceiling is 22ft up. There is a series of tall, side by side windows running all the way across the back (outer) wall of that room from just above the floor to just below where the (10ft) ceiling would have been. About a foot above that an entire 2nd set of identical windows runs all the way up to just below the 22ft ceiling. So, basically, there are 2 sets of identical, tall, side by side windows running all the way across that entire back wall, one set above the other such that they cover almost all 22ft (height) of the 2-story back wall. There is also another 8 windows (also identical to the others) in the adjoining breakfast room, also on the back of the room - with french doors in between the great room and breakfast room windows. Basically, the entire back of the house is 2 stories of wall to wall glass. (There isn't even a place back there for one of those leaning garden sheds, not w/o blocking windows.)
Because the back of the house abuts a forest, I leave those windows open all the time. In fact, there are no curtains on the upper set of windows, since those are too high up to make it at all practical to open and close curtains and too high up for anyone to see us anyhow. I love sunshine, and all the light that comes in through all those great room windows is the main thing that attracted me to the house in the 1st place. Oh, and, thankfully, those windows face N-NE, so that they let in tons of light but almost no direct sun except for about an hour in the very early morning. It gets dreadfully hot here in summer, and direct sunshine through all those windows (a total of 16 tall windows) would heat the house up and fade the furniture/floor. Since it faces mostly north, I can leave those windows open year round - and let all that lovely light flood in.
A mountain scene back there would be wonderful, but alas there are no mountains here on the SC coast. (I loved the gorgeous mountains when I was in PA!) The view from my great room windows is merely that of my backyard with the forest as a back drop. The good thing is that while I was planting my backyard cottage garden I was very much aware of the importance of designing it with the great room windows in mind. I realized I was also planting my view and needed to see the garden from that perspective. My windows look out on pink & white English roses, white jasmine, purple clematis, and a large, sprawling weeping willow. I like it. It's my little piece of Eden in the city.
As to that green strip, I'm not really sure why the drawings for the new development included the green strip behind my house. It's definitely not for a jogging path. We already have a very nice, wide, paved, jogging/biking several miles long and adjoining the entrance to the community, one that the city built several years ago. I think that proposed green strip (the green strip was to be grass, not paved, btw) had something to do with the park they were planning to add adjacent to (and connected to) one end of our community - but I'm not sure what the purpose was for the green strip. I'm just glad they have halted all plans for that development for the foreseeable future. I like things as they are now, leaving the forest behind me uninterrupted and for the wildlife.
Oh, as to their plan to cut all those trees (along with many, many more to put in a park and large housing community behind us, I'm very happy to add that while there is nothing to prevent them from cutting any of those trees, at least someone had the foresight to block (via land trust) the cutting of any trees along the lovely, historic road just outside our community. It's a 2 lane road lined with large, old oaks the branches of which arch across the road like a tunnel that drips Spanish moss down toward the cars running through it. Because the trust prevents cutting any trees along that road, the road can never be widened. It will forever be a lovely, 2 lane road lined with oaks, magnolias, Spanish moss, wisteria, dogwoods, and azaleas, never an overpowering, 8 lane asphalt mega-structure. To bad the trust does not cover the forest behind me.