A Stoney Trench?

[shearenjoyment]

Hi Everyone,

I'm working on the run for our coop and I was planning to use hardware cloth buried 18-24", but I've also seen that others use buried patio stones set vertically and others have poured concrete to prevent predators digging into the run.

Would a 2' deep trench filled with large stones (4"x8" or bigger and more obscurely shaped limestone chunks) prevent digging through? I am surrounded by naturally occuring stones and am feeling energetic.

Thanks.

 

[sticks22]

I would be incline to say yes to your depth question. I would go with stones buried in the ground also, but I would go with larger stones if you can find them. Reason being you want to stop any animals from gigging under your fence! I would make sure though that the larger stones will block the animals from entering by placing them close to the suface and place the smaller stones underneath the larger ones. That way if they only dig near the top then theyll be foced to dig deeper. If they then dig deeper then the larger rocks will collapse on top of them.
I like using an electric fence plus I put a piece of dog wire on the floor of my coop also to prevent unwanted varmints. If you do use my idea of using fencing on the ground of your coop the chickens cant dig out to escape into the yard either. Which they will have a tendency to do. I also had to use tent stakes to keep the fence close to the ground to make it easier to walk on and Im also using hay on top of that. Hope my input helps. The best advice is from everybody. Then you have to decide whats best for you.
I havent had a critter problem at all! I taught my cats from the start "look, this will bite!", meaning the electric fence. No problems yet! Theyll sit there and watch but they never aproached the coop to get a closer look! I even have stray dogs roaming the neighborhood at night too!

 

[shearenjoyment]

Thanks for your reply.

I just finished digging one of the three trenches to surround the run. It's two feet deep and a shovel width wide. I would love to use electric fence but I can't bury the ground rod more than two to three feet deep because I'll hit bedrock. The coop and planned run are also pretty close to overhead utility wires (I'm not sure, but I think that might be a serious problem - I know electric fencing and utility lines are not supposed to run parallel to each other).

I like your idea of putting the largest rocks on top of the smaller ones

 

[Heather J]

I actually haven't buried my fencing around the perimeter of the run or anything else because the yard is so full of rocks, we couldn't get a t-post to pound more than a couple of inches anywhere I tried. We had to dig out the holes for the 4x4 posts we ended up using and many of them took more than 20 minutes each because of the rocks we have (many of which are considerably bigger than a football). I have surrounded the inside of the run with rocks anywhere the ground doesn't meet the fencing, and a few places where it does so if they try digging there, the rock will fall into their hole. I haven't seen any indications that anything has tried digging yet, but I'd rather not take my chances.

 

[chickiedoodle]

We have rocky ground also, and also had to use wood posts because of all the rock in the way of a t-post. We ended up finding some old chain link fence, laying it flat on top of the ground around the perimeter of the fence, tying the bottom of the fence to the chain link with an old spool of electric fence wire, and piling on a HUGE amount of river rock--which is the rock that is so plentiful round these parts--on top of the chain link. Anyway, nothing has tried to dig in, I doubt anything will, but if they do manage to move the rock, they still have the fence to deal with. In the end, it didn't cost us anything except a lot of work and seems to be very effective.