At what point is overkill on permiter run fencing?

[Wildheartsfarm]

Hello, I am designing my chicken area on my small farm, and I'm wondering how gangbusters to go on the 150 feet of perimeter fencing.

It's actually not crazy expensive to go for hardware cloth. If I have a 4-ft high fence, 150 ft. of 1/2 in mesh hardware cloth will cost me $390. By contrast, 150 ft of 5 ft tall 2 in x 3 in welded wire will cost me $115. Those are really my two options as I want to buy local.

For context: We will have an 8x10 coop inside a 30-ft x 40 ft run. I only have a few chickens right now, but we'll probably have up to 15 time and again, with an average flock size of eight or nine. (Right now they are in a smaller mobile coop/chicken tractor and free range when we are out and about during the day, but I'd like to get them in a fenced area so that they can forage whether or not we are home.)

I live in Southern Maine where our predators include foxes, coyotes, raccoons, weasels, hawks, owls, dogs, and the occasional black bear, as well as rats, feral cats, and snakes.

Is hardware cloth just always better? In addition to being more expensive, I imagine it's going to be a lot more trouble for me to install by myself with the t-post fence posts I am using.

Thanks for the help!

 

[SourRoses]

To the title: When you can no longer access your chickens

To the body of the post:
We have found 2x4 4ft welded wire "No climb" fence with metal t-posts every 8 ft to be sufficient for our chicken yards.
It's less pricey which helps us give them a big yard.
During the day, when chickens can see, and they have room to get away there's really no benefit to using HW cloth at a height predators could climb over.
For enclosed runs where the chickens may not all be able to move away far enough, fast enough, HW cloth is necessary. But an open situation allows for 2x4 holes. Hope I worded that in a way that makes sense.

When my chickens see any kind of ground predator approaching (including giant bugs / horror leaves) someone will sound the alarm and they all skedaddle. They have room to skedaddle without slowing each other down and can avoid the fences.
Aerial predators are their biggest threat, but thankfully our crows harry the hawks away.

If I was going to spend more on exterior fencing, it would be to add another foot or two to the height. Most of the chickens are contained just fine, but some are better fliers and may hop over. This is more common when they are juveniles or pullets just coming into lay (the worst for hoppage).

Ground predators are capable of climbing fences... the options for that include a strand of hot wire, a guardian dog, or observant human presence (our situation). We also have a 2 stage fence, inner and outer yard, so that is more intimidating to a climbing critter.

We still use HW cloth on all coop openings, and the run for young chicks off the big brooder.

 

[rosemarythyme]

If it's in your budget I'd do both types of fencing, overlay the smaller mesh over the larger one so you can exclude smaller pests and predators while the larger mesh offers more strength to exclude larger predators.

How gung ho are the bears in your area? If you anticipate they'll be an issue you might have to look into electric fencing as little else will stop a bear. I have bears but they're generally lazy and go for trash cans and other easy targets.

 

[Airyaman]

Hello, I am designing my chicken area on my small farm, and I'm wondering how gangbusters to go on the 150 feet of perimeter fencing.

It's actually not crazy expensive to go for hardware cloth. If I have a 4-ft high fence, 150 ft. of 1/2 in mesh hardware cloth will cost me $390. By contrast, 150 ft of 5 ft tall 2 in x 3 in welded wire will cost me $115. Those are really my two options as I want to buy local.

For context: We will have an 8x10 coop inside a 30-ft x 40 ft run. I only have a few chickens right now, but we'll probably have up to 15 time and again, with an average flock size of eight or nine. (Right now they are in a smaller mobile coop/chicken tractor and free range when we are out and about during the day, but I'd like to get them in a fenced area so that they can forage whether or not we are home.)

I live in Southern Maine where our predators include foxes, coyotes, raccoons, weasels, hawks, owls, dogs, and the occasional black bear, as well as rats, feral cats, and snakes.

Is hardware cloth just always better? In addition to being more expensive, I imagine it's going to be a lot more trouble for me to install by myself with the t-post fence posts I am using.

Thanks for the help!

Wanna save money? Buy your hardware cloth from Amazon. 48" x 100' can be bought for ~$140. Pretty much the same stuff you'll find at Home Depot or the like.

 

[KyCoop]

Help me understand. You have a HWC run but you want to give them yard and there is not an existing fence correct?

I would not go full on HWC , I would do a welded wire and put deer fencing on the inside of it. The girls will not be able to get through it. You can also extend the deer fencing up the full 7ft height if you feel you need it.

We "extended " our chain link fence to 7ft when we had leghorns.

 

[StinkyAcres]

I also recommend electric hot wire with any open-top pen, whether the fence is welded wire, chicken wire, or hardware cloth. Mine is welded wire on T-posts with two strands of electric polywire. The hot wire does require extra maintenance but gives me peace of mind.

 

[Wildheartsfarm]

I also recommend electric hot wire with any open-top pen, whether the fence is welded wire, chicken wire, or hardware cloth. Mine is welded wire on T-posts with two strands of electric polywire. The hot wire does require extra maintenance but gives me peace of mind.

Where did you put the hot wire? On the outside middle and top? Or closer to the bottom? Trying to figure out what you're looking for I keep out with the hot wire.

 

[Wildheartsfarm]

Help me understand. You have a HWC run but you want to give them yard and there is not an existing fence correct?

I would not go full on HWC , I would do a welded wire and put deer fencing on the inside of it. The girls will not be able to get through it. You can also extend the deer fencing up the full 7ft height if you feel you need it.

We "extended " our chain link fence to 7ft when we had leghorns.

I have a hardware cloth chicken tractor that is only 6 x 10. It's basically a mobile coop, no run. It's for rotational grazing/foraging, so like in the fall I can put them on my garden bed for a few days and let them eat plants and weeds and fertilize it for next year.

The full size coupe and large run is where they will live most of the time but I have them in the chicken tractor right now because the coop/run isn't done.

 

[Wildheartsfarm]

If it's in your budget I'd do both types of fencing, overlay the smaller mesh over the larger one so you can exclude smaller pests and predators while the larger mesh offers more strength to exclude larger predators.

How gung ho are the bears in your area? If you anticipate they'll be an issue you might have to look into electric fencing as little else will stop a bear. I have bears but they're generally lazy and go for trash cans and other easy targets.

In my experience hardware cloth is pretty heavy duty... I'm not sure why I would need to add the welded wire if I do hardware cloth?

We haven't had any problems with bears, but they are around. I'm guessing they aren't going to be a big issue.

 

[Wildheartsfarm]

To the title: When you can no longer access your chickens

To the body of the post:
We have found 2x4 4ft welded wire "No climb" fence with metal t-posts every 8 ft to be sufficient for our chicken yards.
It's less pricey which helps us give them a big yard.
During the day, when chickens can see, and they have room to get away there's really no benefit to using HW cloth at a height predators could climb over.
For enclosed runs where the chickens may not all be able to move away far enough, fast enough, HW cloth is necessary. But an open situation allows for 2x4 holes. Hope I worded that in a way that makes sense.

When my chickens see any kind of ground predator approaching (including giant bugs / horror leaves) someone will sound the alarm and they all skedaddle. They have room to skedaddle without slowing each other down and can avoid the fences.
Aerial predators are their biggest threat, but thankfully our crows harry the hawks away.

If I was going to spend more on exterior fencing, it would be to add another foot or two to the height. Most of the chickens are contained just fine, but some are better fliers and may hop over. This is more common when they are juveniles or pullets just coming into lay (the worst for hoppage).

Ground predators are capable of climbing fences... the options for that include a strand of hot wire, a guardian dog, or observant human presence (our situation). We also have a 2 stage fence, inner and outer yard, so that is more intimidating to a climbing critter.

We still use HW cloth on all coop openings, and the run for young chicks off the big brooder.

Thanks, this is really helpful! This was kind of my feeling too -- why use hardware cloth if something could just climb over the fence. I do think we will put some sort of top on to keep out aerial predators, but probably not right away and it will probably only be chicken wire, so not enough to keep away ground predators that are climbing.

That being said, if a ground predator IS approaching, they don't really have anywhere to go that's safe. They can run under their coop, or under the bushes, or inside the coop -- but a small to mid-size predator could access any of those places. I'm trying to build a coop and run that I can conceivably leave for, say, a long weekend or even a week and know that they will be safe without us around to keep predators away.