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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

On May 21, 2008, at 2:06 PM, paxamicus AT earthlink.net wrote:

> Mine was so smart he didn't stop coming until we hung the hung the
> feed bins from tack hooks in the ceilings.

This is a story about coon strength. I once built an impregnable pen  
for broody hens against the side of the root cellar building. Old  
metal roofing around the bottom nailed well to split post oak posts,  
brand new one-inch poultry mesh enclosing the top. I fixed the door  
with a double latch that required the opener to do two things  
simultaneously. He couldn't figure out how to work that so he simply  
got on top and ripped a hole through that spanking new poultry mesh,  
killed the hen and killed all the chicks that were hatching and no  
doubt whose peeps had drawn him in. I found three cold chicks in the  
morning that had apparently hatched after he left. I say he because  
the traps I set, knowing he would be back for the rest of the hen,  
caught him by those parts of a male which positively define the sex. I  
put him out of his considerable misery with the forty-five.

That tragedy is one of the reasons why I no longer use poultry mesh in  
a security condition. Use dog pen wire. It's strong and it lasts.