4 foot, or 4 foot 6 inch tall fence?

texas hiker

In the Brooder
10 Years
Jun 22, 2009
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East Texas
I am getting ready to start on the new chicken yard. My wife and I are expanding the flock and the existing yard is not going to be large enough.

My current fence is 4 foot (48 inches) tall and welded wire.

I would like the new yard to also work with goats. So I was thinking 48 inch goat wire with a smooth wire runner at the top for a total height of 4 feet 6 inches.

The current yard is 75 feet X 35 feet with about 20 chickens.

The new yard is going to be 200 x 100 and we are looking at around 40 chickens.

If the chickens have enough room are they more likely to stay in the yard?

Would you go 48 inches and clip their wings? Or go 4 feet 6 inches and not clip or clip their wings?
 
I would go as high as possible (4.6) and not clip their wings. I have a 4 ft with bird netting over it and never have had issues. Once they reach full body weight, they havent shown much interest in trying to fly unless startled. Good luck!
 
4' 6" and clip their wings, better to be extra safe. If they have loads of rom in the run they are less likely to try and escape.
 
I think you will be ok with just the 4' goat fence. If a fence doesn't have a top rail (goat, horse, field fencing) they are less likely to try it as they can't see a good perch to land on. Although adding a top wire is so easy compared to the rest of the fence build, why not. I have 4' foot non climb horse fence around my 1 acre. The only time I had a problem was when I forgot to open the coop door one evening and they all decided to fly up into a cedar tree to roost right on the other side of the fence. They made it up about 8' into that tree. They are big birds too. Watch for any perching areas (trees ect) right along the fence as 4' 6" is not high enough if they see a perch.
 
I have an eight foot fence enclosing my yard because I have one full-grown black sex link hen who insisted on flying over the other fences I installed. I started out with a four foot one, then when she kept flying right over, I put two more feet up on top of it. She'd flap her way up on top of it, then jump down to freedom. I think she's an unusual chicken and I'm just telling you this so you know that there are a few adventurous ones out there who know what wings are for.
 
Just in case you need an update:


My run is about 4 ft high. If you clip the feathers on one wing of each bird it will help.

Make sure there is no blood in the shaft of the feather before you clip or your bird may bleed to death.

On some birds you may even have to clip a few secondary flight feathers.

One wing throws the bird off balance and is more effective than trimming equal amounts off both wings.
 
Thanks everyone.

I set the first corner post of the new yard yesterday. The corner post are 8 feet long with 3 feet in the ground.

It will be a few more weeks before all of the post are set and the new fence is up in.
 
I have BJG's who wouldn't hop a two ft fence unless they were getting killed or I try to use a tape measure. ( no idea why that freaks them out so much!). My run is 6'6". The reason is, I'm 6' tall and know that I'll have to get in there now and then and I'm not belly crawling to get the waterer they played soccer with!
 
I have BJG's who wouldn't hop a two ft fence unless they were getting killed or I try to use a tape measure. ( no idea why that freaks them out so much!). My run is 6'6". The reason is, I'm 6' tall and know that I'll have to get in there now and then and I'm not belly crawling to get the waterer they played soccer with!

Funny! I have three indoor silkies who have a pen in my mudroom. I made it out of those wire grids you can make storage cubes with. They are about a foot and a half tall. Two of the silkies are chicks raised by the third, so the only time I had trouble with any of them trying to leave was when the young chicks started experimenting with flying. Now they all just look over it but make no attempt to leave even though all three could still fly right over those grids if they wanted to.
 

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