Chicken Netting or Airborn Preditor Management

[jamesrm]

Hey yall

I am near White House, TN and am getting much deeper into birds than I have before. I am building a poultry center on my mom's horse farm which is nearby the local school. My ultimate goal is to make it somewhere that ultimately has a diverse breading selection of chickens, ducks and geese (and a self sustaining turkey population). There are a lot of kids that help take care of the equine population, and a large 4H interest at the school, so I am sure I might be accommodating their interests as well. I already have started a quail area, and have a GQF 5 tier brooder, 15 pen quail breeder, and sportsman 502 incubator. I was doing this on my farm, but I feel that building a new area on her land would be much more rewarding, benefit the kids and benefit the birds my much more human socialization.

I have looked at a lot of coop ideas and think I am going to go with a scaled up version of the Breeder coup in the large section coupled with several chicken tractors.

My primary question is regarding bird netting. I am ok with some loss of birds as I will have a large amount of egg layers and my birds that will be ultimately destined for live sell or for the dinner table (turkeys). I do want large open spaces for them to be able to roam in, its just more natural. I have Googled hours trying to find an affordable netting solution but really do not want to spend thousands of dollars on a product I ..think.. might work? Can anyone shed some light on this or point me in a good direction? I already have to secure the pens tightly versus land predators (The stable master raises terriers

) and just want to do the best I can against airborne threats such as owls and hawks.

Thanks!

 

[JimWWhite]

We took in a Poultry show last year and a lady from the NC Dept. of Agriculture gave a lecture for new chicken rancher. She had a good answer when this question came up. What she suggested was to simply take some twine and run it back and forth across your run in odd intervals from side to side and front to back. She said you didn't have to make it like a netting or anything. Just a line every four to six feet or so. And then you would simply tie on some flags every few feet on the line. You could use the plastic flag material you get at Lowes or Home Depot on a roll. My guess is that yellow would be a good color. She said you didn't have to make it a fortress to ward off hawks and owls because when they see the twine and flags it would be awarning that they could get hurt going in or trying to get out and they would move on to the next farm for a free meal. It made sense to me. I don't have hawk problems because my Gals are under a covered run but if I had an open run I would be doing this.

 

[jamesrm]

Wow, what an amazingly good idea

If anyone else has some, please share.

 

[Parrot]

Go to eBay and purchase pond netting. About $30 for 25' x 25'. It not as strong as the expensive stuff but so far it has worked great for us.

Kail

 

[Dar]

Quote:
I did this and it did not work, the elements broke down the twine and I ended up with 500ft of twine on the floor of my run

 

[JimWWhite]

Quote:
First, for twine I would use the polyester or nylon type, not the sisal natural twine because it will break down in a short time. Second, it's assumed you'll have to do a little up keep on it so it doesn't fall in. Even the synthetic twines will break down in time because of sunlight and you'll have to replace some of it from time to time and tighten it up. And things will grab it and break it. It's all part of the game.

 

[Dar]

Quote:
First, for twine I would use the polyester or nylon type, not the sisal natural twine because it will break down in a short time. Second, it's assumed you'll have to do a little up keep on it so it doesn't fall in. Even the synthetic twines will break down in time because of sunlight and you'll have to replace some of it from time to time and tighten it up. And things will grab it and break it. It's all part of the game.

I used the twine opposed to the synthetic stuff because i wanted the natural look, and it broke down with in weeks cutlers supply has the avian netting

www.cutlersupply.com

 

[RevaVirginia]

You might take a look at Deer Netting (7ft x 100ft) as an option. Home Depot carries it.

 

[SilkieTime]

My daughter lives in Whitehouse. We have lots of hawks. I have a covered run that is made up of roofing tin and hot wire around that. I have a play space that is fenced in with deer netting on the top it was $12 for a 7X100 that I cut to fit. I do stay with them when there in there play yard. Now the LF I have been letting out for and hour or two for there run but I watch them as well. I have a dog that loves her chickens and keeps every thing away. Everyone gets locked up at night. My set up is way different then yours and I wish I could help.

 

[CMV]

Just adding my two cents regarding the twine. It did not work for me and not because it broke down. It just didn't have the desired effect. I used fishing line at 4 foot intervals across an open run and added about 30 CDs hanging around in the surrounding trees. A hawk snapped up a duck within 2 months. If you are not averse to occasional predation then the twine may be helpful in deterring aerial predation, but it is by no means a solution. I have to go with the covered run contingent. I don't have any lines on cheap netting, but last year someone on here mentioned that she got some free netting from her local schools that were updating their outdoor soccer nets. The school was just going to discard the old nets and she took them off their hands. Something to look into if you have a decent sized school in your area.