Burying hardware cloth---too difficult?

[pawsplus]

Yup--just do an apron. Here's mine, before it was staked down. I used heavy-duty tent stakes. In the 3+ years since I added it the grass has grown through it and you can't tell it's there.

 

[Kudzu]

If you have a garden tiller it helps with the digging. Till and remove, till and remove till and remove, bury and fill.

 

[ThinkingChickens]

I've also seen the skirt. Then the person put those cinder blocks on top and planted things in them. It looked pretty good.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

laying the lumber flat on the ground kinda like a deck.
She had a dry walkway all year long and predators couldn't dig thru the wood

That creates a perfect habitat underneath for snakes and rodents

It will also rot away in just a few years.

I've pulled good galvanized fence wire out of the ground that had been there 40 years​

 

[wava1vaughn]

Hi from Ga. Not knowing what kind of predators you have to deal with, you might try putting 12"x12" pavers around the perimeter This works around some of my pens. On others I buried 4x4x 8' pt post around the perimeter. I haven't lost any animals in 4 yrs. My neighbor has lost all of his birds a couple of times. I think I'm lucky.

 

[saddina]

Quote:
That's what we did, flat skirt and pavers, then moved some chairs and potterd herbs onto the new "chicken patio".

 

[Gardengirl 2011]

I just dug up about the first 2" and laid the wire on that, then covered it with what I dug up. Of course now I have a flower bed in the front to make it more appealing to me, but I'd say the apron was probably the easiest part of the whole thing, lol. Of course I don't have rock and clay either. I have sand and oak tree roots.

 

[EncinoMan]

Quote:
We've got raccoons, possums and skunks around here. (I've never actually seen a skunk in my neighborhood, but I've sure smelled them!) I went with an apron of welded, galvanized 1/2" hardware cloth, then put large pavers over it all the way around. If anything wants to try to dig through the hardware cloth, they'd better be hitting the gym regularly! So far so good...I've seen one coon sniffing around, but no break-ins or signs of attempts.

 

[Sniggle]

I've done the skirting for years now & never had any predators dig in - like someone else said, the grass will grow through it quite quickly. In fact I recently had to move the hen yard & we had to dig up some of the fencing that the grass grew into, it was definitely attached! Unless you have really desperate predators, you should be fine not digging it in!

 

[Roadstump]

I dug down 3" then scraped away 24" wide path around the entire coop and run. It 's easier than trenching in the Texas hill country and 3" down and we're out of topsoil anyway. The hardware cloth then got laid in the area and covered back up with dirt. One thing you need to consider...the chickens will dig and dig from the inside of the coop as they scratch around. The 3" is about how far I've noticed them digging down and they have not compromised the rather shallow depth.