Chicken Wire / Hardware cloth questions for run

[Sugar Sand Farm]

DH bought some 6 foot high vinyl coated chicken wire. Its alot stronger than the regular chicken wire. I believe it came fromthe farmers co op in . I really don't think a coon could eat through it. its pretty thick

 

[staceyc]

After reading all the scary stories of losses to predators, I decided to use just hardware cloth for my 8x10 run. I buried it a foot, and ran 3' sections of it around horizontally, and continued that pattern over the top. I didn't know about any cool clippy things, so I tried two solutions for where the edges of the hw cloth meet: 1. small zip-ties. I didn't like them ... they were a pain to put on, they looked messy, and deep down I knew a 'coon can bite through them. 2. What did work for me was to basically sew the edges of the hardware cloth together with galvanized steel wire. I bent the end of the wire, pushed it into a grid hole, and used needle-nosed pliers to pull it back through a couple more holes over. I made an in/out pass every 4"-6" or so, pulling it tight as I went along. I found that it was practical to work with pieces of wire about 3' long. I was careful pulling it through to avoid making loop/crimps in the wire, because if you let the wire get a crimp in it, it will get stuck and will be very annoying every time you go to thread it through another hole. It was rough work, but I sleep well nights now.

 

[longranger]

I too hate chicken wire but had a lot of unused 2x4" welded fence so I put up the heavy gauge wire everywhere wire was needed and then put on chicken wire low and in a few other critical areas to prevent younger birds from sticking their heads out like popsicles for my dogs and other predators to munch on. It is always a pain to work with but if you do a clean job and clip or cover the sharp loose ends it works well in tandem with the heavier wire. A little less $$ too even if you don't already have the wire.

 

[wegotchickens]

Quote:
Stayceyc, we also 'sewed' the wire together for our first run, and are about to do the same for our new coop & runs. Yes, it's a bear when there's a crimp in the wire!! We used the plastic ties to hold it together to make sewing easier. This time I'm going to have my daughter stand on the inside to pass the wire back through. I think that will make it go faster.

Since we have 3 more runs to do, I am going to check into the crimp thingees. But are the crimpers small enough to fit through 1/2" hardware cloth?

 

[cmom]

My run is made with chicken wire but it was built several years ago. This is an old picture and the run is now covered.

 

[StacyK]

We made our run out of chicken wire, before I read on here about at the stories why shouldn't. But we haven't had any problems & our neighbor who's had chickens for years with chicken wire hasn't either. I am ready to reinforce when needed, though I can't talk my husband into preventative action right now. Spent too much on the "chicken condo" as he calls it.

We found 5ft chicken wire at our local feed store. My run is about 6 ft tall, so we got a 2ft roll for the overlap (used on the upper part so more secure than piecing down lower) & "sewed" the sections together as mentioned by staceyc & wegotchickens. It holds it nice & tight. On all the corners of the run and/or where we nailed to posts, we put a 1"x2" furring strip to cover the edges for more security. Not sure if it shows well in the pic.

 

[Mahlzeit]

It's 2 x 4 sorry about that. I get it from the lumber yard here. But my pricing will surely be more expensive than most other places. It sucks living here haha.

Quote:
I haven't seen 1x2 vinyl coated... mind sharing where you are getting it and what kind of price?

 

[Mahlzeit]

I only use this for the run they are in during the day. Mine are locked up at night so thats why this works well for me.


Quote:
I was looking at that originally as well but I figured some of the smaller predators could still get through, like rats or skunks (maybe????). I've also heard of raccoons reaching in and grabbing heads off chickens and the 1X2 wire wouldn't prevent that. But seeing as I used chicken wire anyway and they could all probably chew through it I guess it wouldn't matter.

I'll just put trust in the dogs during the day and the hardware clothed coop at night.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Wire, be it chicken wire, hardware cloth or welded wire cames in widths of 24", 30", 3', 4', 5' & 6'. Possibly other widths, bit those are the ones I am familiar with. Most stores do not carry all sizes, but many will special order if asked. A 6' wide wire is much safer than two 3' wide rolls clipped or sewn together.

 

[kopiko]

I got away with using 3M and a stable gun on 86 HP...but then again that was vinyl
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