Alternatives to netting?

[SourRoses]

Hi!
We live under a canopy of (many) old grandaddy live oak trees. It's wonderful for shade but presents a problem with aerial netting.
Limbs fall occasionally throughout the year and since it's such a dense wood, even small ones are heavy enough to break whatever is under them. In our case bringing down whole swaths of netting. Several years ago we just gave up on it.

We've had red tailed hawks in our yard but thankfully no losses.
Thanks in large part to the crows who nest in the trees and harry them off. They are really good crows. But this summer they seem to be gone for longer stretches during the day, foraging or whatever they do, and our adult birds have been alerting more during their absences.
Last week we had a hawk swoop low over their free range yard (1/2 acre), but everybody made it under cover.
Now, we've got 40 rarer chicks growing and we before we put them out I'd like to have some sort of aerial defense that won't break every few weeks.

I was thinking of running rope a few feet apart from the porch to the fence and coops to the fence. More as a deterrent to swooping, and hopefully the branches would fall between the ropes / only take down one at a time ??

Or I was wondering, what if we purposely fed our (proven effective) crows so they stay home?

Any other ideas or advice, please?
*Except for messing with the trees, which is not only way too expensive, and we love them, but we also rent, and many are rooted on neighboring properties.
Trust me, they are huge.

 

[gtaus]

We recently got a Harbor Freight in our town. I found out that they put out their pallets by the dumpster and we are free to take as many as we want. So far, I have picked up about 16 free pallets. I am wondering if you built a frame to support the pallets, if you could build a roof over your chicken run under the trees. If a branch falls down on top of the pallet, who cares? If you don't like the look of pallets as a roof, you could easily cover it with a cheap green tarp. Would not affect the trees on the property you rent and could easily be taken down if you move.

 

[SourRoses]

We recently got a Harbor Freight in our town. I found out that they put out their pallets by the dumpster and we are free to take as many as we want. So far, I have picked up about 16 free pallets. I am wondering if you built a frame to support the pallets, if you could build a roof over your chicken run under the trees. If a branch falls down on top of the pallet, who cares? If you don't like the look of pallets as a roof, you could easily cover it with a cheap green tarp. Would not affect the trees on the property you rent and could easily be taken down if you move.

That is a good idea for a smaller space.
I am looking to protect at least the 1/4 acre around the coops even if we can't do anything about the 1/2 acre ranging area. The structure under the pallets would have to be strong to stand up to storms and impacts so it seems like a big investment of effort and money.
Thank you for trying! I appreciate the thought.

 

[gtaus]

Thank you for trying! I appreciate the thought.

Hope someone comes up with a good idea for you. Best wishes.

 

[raingarden]

What kind of netting were you using before? Stromberg's knotted netting has an 85 pound breaking strength for each strand. When the load is spread out it can support many hundreds of pounds. The netting supports will break way before the netting itself.

We have monkey pod trees with a canopy up to 60 feet high above net enclosures and they shed a lot of branches. Sometimes a big branch will collapse the netting pull it down to the ground but it doesn't break through. I've had to slit the netting open to get large branchs out but it's not a big deal to stitch the netting back together afterwards.