Any Experience with Coated Welded Wire for Coops?

[AcademyFence]

Hey folks,

I'm new here and don't even have any chickens at the moment, although we kind of share my neighbors. We do have a great urban chicken community here in Pensacola, though, through which I became familiar with BYC.com.

Anyway I've actually started blogging for an old friends fence company and am learning more than I ever wondered about fences.

My question for you is, Does anyone have experience with PVC coated welded wire coops, and do chickens eat, peck at or otherwise damage the coating? Apparently it lasts longer, as the weld joints are protected from rust damage, but I doubt the PVC would digest well. I could also see rats chewing at it.

Based on this thread, it looks like welded wire works well for protecting the chickens from any large animals, but may need to be combined with chicken wire or hex netting to keep the vermin out.

I also read that there is a different name for the thicker gauge chicken wire, but can't seem to find it again.

Thanks and have a good one.

Mike

 

[GulfStar]

As to whether chickens will peck at the coating, I have no idea. One thing I can help you with is the fact that all coated wire is not equal. Most of the coated chicken wire found at home inprovement stores is not galvanized prior to dipping in plastic. You can get wire from suppliers who make crab traps. They have heavier gage wire that is galvanized prior to coating with plastic, and you can get hex, or dimensional square wire. The plastic coating is used on crab traps as away to protect the zinc coating from scrathes. This method greatly extends the life of a trap. That being said, i believe you'd come out ahead by using good harware cloth and mounting with edge boards so it can be easily replaced if needed.

 

[AcademyFence]

Great point on using hardware cloth and edge boards for easy replacement of the mesh, GulfStar. And I'm well aware of the differences in grade and quality in coated welded wire. The bog box stores like Lowes and HD will not only sell non-galvanized mesh, they'll gauge it WITH the coating so rather than getting a heavy 14 gauge mesh with a coating on top of it, you're getting a thinner 16 gauge mesh which comes up to the 14 measurement when the thickness of the coating is included.

Comparing the overall weight of the product is a good way to compare. I'm actually working on a blog article about it this week. From what my boss (friend) at Academy tells me, crab trap material may be heavier duty than necessary, as long as you are getting galvanized material which is gauged before coating.

Also I'm guessing that the coating being chewed or pecked isn't a big problem, since no one's mentioning it. I'll make sure we link to BYC from the Academy site.