Keeping predators out of chicken coop11/17/2023 The small openings at the bottom keep poultry from slipping out and small predators from getting in. Of the many kinds of wire mesh available, one that works well for chickens and is relatively low on the cost scale is the yard-and-garden fence with one-inch spaces toward the bottom and wider spaces toward the top. The idea is to zap any animal that tries to either dig under or climb over.īarring the expense of chain link, the (next) best kind of fence for chickens is wire mesh with fairly small openings that neither chickens nor predators can get through. Unlike that long-ago chain link fence, this one has an electrified scare wire running along the outside bottom. It’s only a smallish yard, designed for housing setting hens, and growing birds that are more vulnerable to predators than mature birds. Last year, I realized my dream of once again having a yard protected by chain link. So, occasionally, we lose a bird that wanders into the orchard for lunch and meets a fox with the same idea. It does a good job of keeping out the larger predators, but does not keep out the smaller chicken eaters, and certainly does not keep the chickens in. For years, we fenced our poultry with the same high tensile, smooth wire, electric fence that contains our four-legged livestock. Our chicken yard (pasture, really) is fairly large, so the cost of enclosing it with chain link would be prohibitive. Trouble is, the wildlife have as much interest in poultry as we do. I now live on a farm where we enjoy the wildlife as much as we enjoy our poultry. My biggest regret in leaving that property was giving up the chain link fence. Of those, one bantam hen was taken away by a hawk (that I know of for sure because I saw it happen) and the others were mostly chicks that popped through the fence and got carried off by a neighbor’s cat. In the 11 years that I lived there, I lost few chickens. Well, it did get better because the fences were all six-foot chain link. The chickens, in fact, came with the property. What swayed me to select the house I finally purchased was that it was fenced, cross-fenced, and loaded with chickens. To make sure the property was zoned for chickens, I looked for a place that either had chickens or had near neighbors with chickens. Way back when I was ready to purchase my first house, high on my list of must-haves was a place to raise chickens. A good fence for your chickens is more than worth the investment.
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