Backwoods Open Coop

[Vadard]

I live in a hot, muggy climate (Gulf Coast) and am a big fan of open coop designs. This coop will be 12x30 overall with an 8x12 roosting area at the north end. The roosting area will have a single-slope metal roof and will have 1” pine board & batten siding on 3 sides. The south side of this area will be open to the rest of the coop. For the run area, I’m going with 1/2” HWC from 1’ below grade to 3’ high. Then from 3’ to 7’ I’m using 2”x4” welded wire fence. I’m also using the 2”x4” fencing to cover the top of the run. Here are a couple of simple sketches:

And here’s the progress from this past weekend. All 15 poles laid out and set. Will brace up the poles then run the HWC next.

Here’s a question for y’all: I’ve always used 1/2” HWC for my coops and tractors. For this one, I plan to use it for the bottom 3 feet of the fencing around the run. I chose HWC because raccoons can’t reach through it and chickens can’t stick their heads out of it…..but is there any risk of a dog or coyote somehow biting through 1/2” HWC? Just devil’s advocate. We don’t have bears here, thankfully, but we have some monster coyotes and coy-dogs. I’m debating running the 2x4 welded wire over the HWC, or even just running some barbed wire over it. Overkill? I have little kids, so I’m staying away from electric fencing for now. I’ll probably run an apron around the whole thing. Thanks for any thoughts or experiences you can share!

I’ll post again once I’ve got some HWC installed.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Yes HWC can be breached by larger predators. Any wire can, really, though HWC is still more secure than chicken wire. If you budget allows for you to overlap a 2x4 wire that will provide extra strength to the fence.

 

[Mouthpear]

Use 1x2 welded wire and near the bottom waist down, do a layer of hardware cloth.