Bird Netting - Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

[jgaepi]

So I am about to move forward with the last phase of my chicken run design - the roof. I have bought a few flexible pvc sticks and am going to create a dome over my chicken coop. This will provide a covered roof of sorts for the run. I bought black nylon bird netting. I need to use the netting in one 5 foot section because I have an apple tree and this will allow me the flexibility to wrap around the branches of the tree. To give a better description, My run is 26ft long and 4ft deep. The leftmost 12 feet has no obstructions. Then I have the 5ft wide tree and then no obstructions for the last 9 feet (but this is where my 6ft coop is. So I have to create a dome over the top of the coop.

But I could hypothetically use chicken wire over the pvc dome as a roof. This would still leave that tree section having bird netting exposed to an animal getting through. So it could have chicken wire for the left 12 feet, then bird netting for 5ft and then chicken wire for the last 9ft curved as a dome.

Is it worth this trouble? Should I just use the bird netting for everything?

 

[silkielover5]

we have netting over all our coops and we love it. in one coop we have a tree that we cut the net so it wrapped around it and then we used clips.

not a great picture

 

[seminolewind]

If you go with netting, double it.

 

[jgaepi]

no issues with raccoons or other predators ripping through it?

 

[silkielover5]

no we didnt double it. this coop has had the netting for 5 years and no problems yet

 

[teach1rusl]

If it's just for daytime use (hawks, etc.), then the netting sounds good - assuming you'd be shutting your birds in at night time. Raccoons could easily tear through that stuff though. I had the deer netting up around my garden last year (just to keep the chickens out of it), and the dogs chased a rabbit through it. I figure the bird netting is about the same. But raccoons are primarily going to be out at night, so as long as the birds are shut inside at night, it'd work fine.

 

[seminolewind]

Quote:
X2

 

[bfrancis]

We have just used 2" x 2" netting for years over all our coops...live out in the woods and have every varmint here minus bears...with never a break in.

This is a pic of the only coop that can't be "closed up" at night that still there's never been a night time break in

I have trees in the run that had to be netted around too.

 

[WoodlandWoman]

If I had to keep raccoons out, I'd use something like 2x4 welded wire fencing for a roof. I've used chicken wire on a run roof, but it was only to keep out hawks during the day. I would never use it to keep out raccoons.

 

[teach1rusl]

I think many of us are defining "netting" differently. I thought you were talking about that plastic stuff that's used to keep birds off of fruit trees and certain shrubs...
Poultry netting/wire is a little sturdier than that, although there've been MANY posts in the pred/pests sections about raccoons getting through that too.
However, either would work for daytime use. I wouldn't rely on either for night time use myself though...