# Another bear question (also a barn ventilation question)



## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

I'm still working out how to reconfigure my new barn. We have black bears that live on the next property and we have what I call a "bear highway" on our property, about 100 feet from the barn. Anyways... if I had a standard Dutch door and left the top of the door open at night, could / would a bear go through it? I don't plan on stalling my horses frequently, but I'd like them to be safe and comfortable when I do. The barn doesn't have good ventilation and I'm not sure what to do about that. I thought that putting Dutch doors on the outside of each stall and leaving the top open at night might be enough. But obviously getting a bear in their stall wouldn't be very good.

I plan on putting their feed in a critter-proof container in a completely walled-off room inside the barn, which I'm hoping will be enough that the bears won't smell it and want to come in. Is that sufficient? We don't have bears where we live now, so all I know about them is that they are really clever and strong and love to get into food.


----------



## ksbowman (Oct 30, 2018)

Black bears climb trees very well so the bottom of a dutch door would be duck soup for them to go over. They climb in and out steel trash containers all the time. Your feed containers should be bear proof and have a good strong storage room. My cousin used to have a metal trash can in his garage that he kept cat food in for strays. He went out one night as he had forgot to close the garage door. When he turn on the light a bear had turned it over and was still in it. He said he didn't who was the most startled him or the bear!


----------



## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

ksbowman said:


> Black bears climb trees very well so the bottom of a dutch door would be duck soup for them to go over. They climb in and out steel trash containers all the time. Your feed containers should be bear proof and have a good strong storage room. My cousin used to have a metal trash can in his garage that he kept cat food in for strays. He went out one night as he had forgot to close the garage door. When he turn on the light a bear had turned it over and was still in it. He said he didn't who was the most startled him or the bear!


Yes, I'm planning on putting them in bearproof containers in a sealed room. I thought that, plus the face that the room was inside a barn that would be mostly closed-off, would keep them out, because they wouldn't be able to smell it so they wouldn't know it was there. I just don't know how sensitive their smell is, and whether I'm right about that. I know from experience with other critters that once they get in, and they learn that there's something yummy in there, they will redouble their efforts to get back in. I want to do it right the first time, so they won't even think of getting in.


----------



## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

Yep, first time a bear visited my barn it was because I had the front door open and he came in and helped himself to the chicken scratch in a metal can, like @*ksbowman* said. I was grateful he enjoyed the sunflower seeds and left the chickens alone. Closed up the barn and didn't worry about it.

The next morning when I woke up, the front door of the barn had been pulled completely off the structure. The bear had been back and finished off the sunflower seeds. That door was so heavy my husband and I could barely pick it up and rehang it together. I can't imagine how strong a bear is to just flick it to the ground. This is the front door:









In my experience, the only thing strong enough to keep a bear out is high voltage. We have an 8k volt hot wire run around the barn in the summer. So far, that has worked. It's a pain for going in and out though!


----------



## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

egrogan said:


> In my experience, the only thing strong enough to keep a bear out is high voltage. We have an 8k volt hot wire run around the barn in the summer. So far, that has worked. It's a pain for going in and out though!


That wouldn't work with my plan of leaving the top of the Dutch door open, right? I don't know a lot about electrical fencing (I need to learn, I know), but ... hmm... how would that work with a lot of doors, including the two main barn doors? Would I create a temporary electric fence around the whole structure, that I would just turn on at night? But I'd have to have some sort of "gates" in there to open to let the horses in and out, right?


----------



## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

Other people may give you better ideas, but what I ended up doing is running a single strand around the whole structure, breaking off onto step-in posts to create a double strand "gate" run with handles across the front of the barn (including across where the door was ripped off). It is a giant pain to have to open the gate or unplug the charger and step over the gate every time I want to go in and out of the barn. My horses don't live in the barn, but the chickens do so I'm in and out at least twice a day. I think in the set up you describe, you'd have to run the strand across the open face of the dutch doors too. If the horses will come and go regularly, it may just not be practical or safe, and you may have to take your chances on the bears. At minimum, keeping any grain-based or pelleted food stored elsewhere would help.

Curious if you get other suggestions though, as I'd love to make my setup more convenient!


----------



## ClearDonkey (Nov 27, 2016)

Hmm - could you make two separate tops to your dutch door, that are on their own hinges?

You could have the inner top be a mesh or grate, and have the outer top be the traditional wood. That way you could still put the horses in and have air flow, but have no access point for the bears. It would require a bit more craftmanship, but I don't think it would be too hard with the right tools.


----------



## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

@egrogan I'm going to have a couple of small paddocks off the Dutch doors, maybe I could just put the electric wire on top of that fencing and just let the horses in and out through the main barn.

Also, do you have yours charged and running in the daytime or only at night? And you mentioned the summer ... I guess in the winter the bears are hibernating and it's not an issue?

One thought I also just had was to ask some of the horse-owning neighbors what they have done that works. I'll have to wait until I'm up there again to do it, though.


----------



## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

ClearDonkey said:


> Hmm - could you make two separate tops to your dutch door, that are on their own hinges?
> 
> You could have the inner top be a mesh or grate, and have the outer top be the traditional wood. That way you could still put the horses in and have air flow, but have no access point for the bears. It would require a bit more craftmanship, but I don't think it would be too hard with the right tools.


Huh... I don't see why not. One part could swing in and the other part could swing out. Would the mesh or grate keep them out? Maybe it would add just enough deterrence for them to decide it wasn't worth the trouble?


----------



## egrogan (Jun 1, 2011)

Fence is on day and night. I haven't put it up yet this season but probably will next month, and it will stay up until early December depending on snow.


----------



## ClearDonkey (Nov 27, 2016)

ACinATX said:


> Huh... I don't see why not. One part could swing in and the other part could swing out. Would the mesh or grate keep them out? Maybe it would add just enough deterrence for them to decide it wasn't worth the trouble?


I'm sure there are people more experienced with black bears than myself - my BO never had problems with them, and there is a black bear hunting camp less than a mile from her barn. She closes her barn at night, but you would figure that her dogs would hear the bears in the yard, plus she regularly fed her pigs dinner scraps and what not.

Another idea that comes to mind is motion-sensors that create noise. I know I've seen videos of black bears being conditioned to run away from dogs barking, and people have used alarms that imitate those dogs barking. In my experience with backpacking in black bear territory (with bears conditioned to being around humans, too), the number one thing that is used to scare off black bears is noise. I'm sure there is a motion-sensor type thing on the market for this exact use that may be worth some investigating.


----------



## ChieTheRider (May 3, 2017)

Do you have dogs? Black bears are skittery animals and large dogs tend to scare them off. We had a couple of Pyrenees when we lived in the sticks and never had a problem with bears or any other critter on the property. Never had a rat problem either. If we were talking about grizzly bears then it'd be a different story, but black bears do tend to run from noise and dogs. Most dogs are pretty good about telling when a bear is near and raising Cain about it. 

The last time we had trouble with bears was in the suburbs when we didn't have dogs and they would go through the neighborhood at night and tear up trash cans. It didn't happen often enough to convince dad to bear-proof anything though.


----------



## ACinATX (Sep 12, 2018)

No, no dogs. I thought about getting one, since in addition to the bears there is also the occasional mountain lion, but I'm not a dog person and I don't think I would be a good dog owner.


----------



## Avna (Jul 11, 2015)

Check out electric fence solutions at PremierOne. This is a problem they deal with. 

Electric fences do not have to be dangerously high voltage to work. They just have to be super unpleasant. If you've ever been lightly shocked by an electric fence you will understand that there is something about it that makes you very loath to try it again. Even bears feel this way.


----------



## ksbowman (Oct 30, 2018)

ACinATX said:


> Yes, I'm planning on putting them in bearproof containers in a sealed room. I thought that, plus the face that the room was inside a barn that would be mostly closed-off, would keep them out, because they wouldn't be able to smell it so they wouldn't know it was there. I just don't know how sensitive their smell is, and whether I'm right about that. I know from experience with other critters that once they get in, and they learn that there's something yummy in there, they will redouble their efforts to get back in. I want to do it right the first time, so they won't even think of getting in.


 Bears have an extremely good sense of smell and a nose that is hard to fool. Their eye sight is not real good but, they pickup movement very well.


----------



## avjudge (Feb 1, 2011)

My first thought was the same as @ClearDonkey - the grilled upper half of the door (plus another layer that can be closed to seal it up). But if there are going to be paddocks off the barn, yes, you could put a electric strands on that fence.

@egrogan, rather than step-in posts around the front of the barn, I'd put electric strands right on the door. I assume the electric wire is on insulators on the barn wall elsewhere? I'd run a jumper (insulated wire rated for the high voltage) underground completing the connection across each doorway, and a length of wire (one or 2 strands, whichever you're doing) mounted on each door. On the sliding door I would think you could use a short jumper wire with an insulated clips to connect & electrify it when the door is closed (just needed at one end). You'd just have to disconnect it before you open the door, which shouldn't be a big deal (I think - I haven't had to do ta. If there are hinged doors on the barn that wire would just attach to the main wire on the wall at the hinge end so it would stay electrified. 

@ACinATX, you could still have gates in the paddock. Solid swinging gates can have an attached electrified strand, or you can have a separate strand that fastens across the gateway with an electric gate handle on it. 

Also, I've heard it recommended that you bait the fence - empty but not cleaned tuna or cat food cans or tied-on bacon for carnivores - so they get zapped right on their sensitive noses and really learn that they don't want to go near that fence! 

We've been lucky, no bear come by here even though they raid neighbors' trash and chickens. 2 years ago they got all 4 of a neighbor's chickens, avoiding the electric fence by ripping the side of the coop open. I do think our dog helps keep them away, just by being here.


----------

