Cat killed my goose last night

[FarmerSeth]

Hey community,
Last night I woke up to the sound of my young goose squealing and the ducks clamoring. Normally I wouldn’t get out of bed, but then I heard some hissing, so I ran out to the yard. My wife saw the cat running away along the fence. Thankfully we got there before it went after any of the ducks, but it left my poor goose ripped open in their pen. We had to cull her in the middle of the night.

I keep them in a pen with a 4.5 foot tall wood and mesh fence. It was easy for the cat (feral? Neighborhood cat?) to climb and drop in. What do y’all recommend? Netting over the top maybe? Wish I didn’t have to mess with all this but I sure don’t want to come out to find one of my birds like that again.

thanks.

 

[FarmerSeth]

Here’s a picture of the goose, as well as part of their setup.

 

[Ruby Rogue]

It's a beautiful setup, but I'd recommend a solid roof and an apron to prevent predators from getting in.

 

[FarmerSeth]

It's a beautiful setup, but I'd recommend a solid roof and an apron to prevent predators from getting in.

How would you roof it? Thanks for any suggestions

 

[Ruby Rogue]

How would you roof it? Thanks for any suggestions

I'm not a carpenter by any means, @aart would be able to help.

 

[aart]

Be hard to put a solid roof on there with that tree in the way.
Maybe some heavy duty netting.
@rosemarythyme has a good example of netting...
....and maybe she knows who might have a 'tree installation'.

 

[Mamatomany123]

I agree with heavy duty netting. We added on to our run as I temporarily put up some cheap netting. My cat tried to walk on it and fell through. Chickens flying and cat screaming because he's scared of the chickens. We now have a solid roof but that may be hard with the tree there.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Be hard to put a solid roof on there with that tree in the way.
Maybe some heavy duty netting.
@rosemarythyme has a good example of netting...
....and maybe she knows who might have a 'tree installation'.

I've seen photos of folks installing netting around trees in the run but don't have experience with it myself (from what I can remember it's usually just putting netting over the open areas and wrapping the netting as securely around the trunk as you can). That said, that tree doesn't look too hard to work around - no low hanging branches - and it can serve to give you an elevated anchoring point to raise the center of the netting so you have decent head clearance.

Because some of your fencing is on the short side you'd need to create a higher edge for the netting to rest on. For the 4' tall side of my run I used 6' U-posts and ran tension wire across the top of the posts to create a roughly 6' tall boundary around the run. You'll also need some support in the center to hold up the net, which is where the tree could possibly come into play.



Is the fence in the back yours or a neighbor's? Just wondering if there's any restrictions on putting posts up against that fence to provide extra support, as U and T posts aren't all that strong by themselves, so best to secure it to existing fencing if possible.

The netting that many of us use on here is this one: https://pinnonhatch.com/Poultry-Sup...y-Protection-Netting/2-heavy-knotted-netting/ They have different opening sizes and weights, but the 2" heavy seems to be the most popular on here.

 

[FarmerSeth]

I'm not a carpenter by any means, @aart would be able to help.

Thanks for the help

 

[FarmerSeth]

I've seen photos of folks installing netting around trees in the run but don't have experience with it myself (from what I can remember it's usually just putting netting over the open areas and wrapping the netting as securely around the trunk as you can). That said, that tree doesn't look too hard to work around - no low hanging branches - and it can serve to give you an elevated anchoring point to raise the center of the netting so you have decent head clearance.

Because some of your fencing is on the short side you'd need to create a higher edge for the netting to rest on. For the 4' tall side of my run I used 6' U-posts and ran tension wire across the top of the posts to create a roughly 6' tall boundary around the run. You'll also need some support in the center to hold up the net, which is where the tree could possibly come into play.

View attachment 2730675

Is the fence in the back yours or a neighbor's? Just wondering if there's any restrictions on putting posts up against that fence to provide extra support, as U and T posts aren't all that strong by themselves, so best to secure it to existing fencing if possible.

The netting that many of us use on here is this one: https://pinnonhatch.com/Poultry-Sup...y-Protection-Netting/2-heavy-knotted-netting/ They have different opening sizes and weights, but the 2" heavy seems to be the most popular on here.

Thanks for the information and the link. This is super helpful and probably what I will end up implementing.
Thanks again.