Chicken Wire vs other types of netting

[Chick_a_dee]

Quote:
Ohh I'd be curious to know what would keep snakes out of my coop, we discovered a small snake nest in the wall of the coop while we were renovating it today... they're just common garden snakes but still!

 

[EliteTempleton]

I've been told many times that King snakes will take over the territory and they will be the only one/s you have.

Win/lose...

But hey, atleast the King snake will control the rats too...

 

[Shared Acres]

Some people swear by mothballs to keep the snakes away. My neighbor uses it.

We've been thinking of getting it and throwing it around the outside of the coop.

 

[cmom]

Quote:
I agree. I used 1/4 x 1/2" hardwire cloth for my baby chicks, and for my adults I also use 1" chicken wire.

 

[cmom]

I use chicken wire now. Originally I used netting. Now I use chicken wire with the same posts that I used with the netting. I have the wire steaked down. So far no problems and I live where we have quite a few preditors. The run off the coop has wire on top and they run in there if anything frightens them.

 

[Jenski]

cmom, how long have you had your coop/run setup?

Volume904, mothballs are toxic to chickens.

And all who mentioned snakes, 1/2" hardware cloth and sealing up all holes to coop will keep snakes out of both coop and run. However, I have seen pics of a snake scaling a 4" run wall, so do be sure to cover tops as well ~ if you want to completely keep them out.

Chicken wire is the cheaper choice, but it is a gamble. If you do a search back through the "predator" section of this forum, you will see many, many sad stories of folks who lost chickens ~ or entire flocks ~ when predators peeled back the chicken wire and got into runs. That gamble is a personal choice, but it is still playing the odds.

The only preds I am aware of that might be able to get through a solid 2 x 4 run with well-attached hardware cloth are big cats and bears. I would welcome any information to the contrary.

Good luck to those building new runs! There are a lot of good ideas to utilize on the forum.