Chicken wire....why will it not go past 50 in??????????????????????

[Zahboo]

Welded wire is that 2x4" or the 1x3" strong wire. It's used for dog pens and stuff. I LOVE IT. If you use this with hardware cloth, or chicken wire at the bottom to hold in young ones, it is usually predator proof at the sides. I learned a stressful way that chicken wire alone will NOT hold back our pitt bull. Not anything against her breed, but she just busted through my wire. I'm glad she couldn't get through the pop door. Hardware cloth is the little squares, strong, but costly. It is the only think I found that holds serama chicks. My 3 week old Seramas can get through chick wire.

 

[Chicken Rustler]

Another method of making "chicken wire" wider is to use "J" metal. It is little strips of metal formed in the shape of a J thus the name. It is commonly used for making rabbit cages. The tool cost about $5.00 and the metal is rather cheap too. It is fast and easy to do. I used it on all of my run and what I did was overlap the wire about a foot then put the j metal in a zig zag patternit is prety secure that way.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

I just don't see how i can take 2 pieces of "poultry wire" and fix them together?? Unless i take this "twist tie" stuff and fix "every hole" together???

Run a "purlin" to nail it to
(It's the horizontal pieces between the uprights)

But I'd just use welded wire the right height instead of hardware cloth​

 

[G Wiz Ranch]

Check with a landscaping type store that sells SOD (grass), I just laid some sod down and I used some 72"x150' 1" "poultry" netting to lay down before the sod to stop gophers.

Personally, I use 2"x4" welded wire in both my duck and chicken runs and I have had no problems. I understand that a chicken "could" stick its head through the hole and a coon or something can come by and have a chance at the chickens head, I know it happened to someone on this site. I think for my situation where the predators are only around at night that it has not and probably will not be a problem. My chickens are Free Ranging all day anyway. They are only in the run on days that I decide to "remind" them where they are supposed to lay eggs, or days where I am working with a tractor around the place and I get tired of honking at them to get out of the way. I am up to 60 chickens now, so loosing one to a darwin award is not going to set me back. As for my ducks, they never stick their heads through the fence, there too lazy, all they do is sit around in the shade. LOL.

 

[Chick_a_dee]

The largest I found was 48" hardware cloth from our local BMR, it wasn't that spendy either. We did the bottom of our run in hardware cloth and the top in the kennel wire with 2x6 as support between the two layers.

 

[annek]

Quote:
If you need 60" wire I would go with the welded wire. They have it in 4', 5', 6' heights. They carry it at Tractor Supply for sure, I think that height is also carried at home depot and lowes. It is not expensive. I think I just bought 50' in the 4' height for under 50.00 at the most-think it was closer to 40.00. Using the welded wire (usual brand is RedLine) you won't need twist ties or anything like that, just roll it out and nail it to the posts. Along the bottom I would put something smaller up a little bit, this can be chicken wire or whatever just to keep the chickens from sticking their heads out.

This stuff is durable and easy to work with, much easier than hardware cloth, and a lot cheaper but not predator proof for small critters.

 

[patandchickens]

Just use some galvanized fence wire, such as 20-16 gauge, and 'sew' the seam together. In and out and in and out. Really, it is easy (don't use too long a piece of wire at once or it gets awkward)

Make sure that whatever you sew the seam together with is at least as strong as the mesh itself, or you are creating a weak point that will come back to haunt you.

Have fun,

Pat

 

[Nicola]

what design did u choose?

 

[River Lizard]

I'm planning on running Hardware cloth on the bottom 2 ft. and then chicken wire up the rest of the way to the top 8 ft. and over to top of the run too. The hardware cloth will keep pederators at bay and the chicken wire above it, will keep my cost down!

I'm using 1" Galvanized pipe for my post and then trimming it with Treated Wood which will get painted either trim color or siding color, I just haven't decided yet. Both types of wire will be nailed to the board by U-shaped staples.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
It will also keep your chickens' safety down, unfortunately -- hardwarecloth on the bottom 2' is GOOD, but if predators can just reach up and rip through the chickenwire (and, they can) then what was the point

Consider, instead of chickenwire, using 2x4" welded wire, which can sometimes be gotten used and thus cheap. Or even secondhand chainlink if you know how to install it properly - again, if you scrounge you may be able to find it cheap or free.

At the very least, if you HAVE to put chickens SOMEWHERE now and can only afford chickenwire, do yourself a favor and attach things so that it will be easy to remove the chickenwire and replace it with welded wire no larger than 2x4, or chainlink, when you DO manage to scrounge 'em up. Rather than having the hardwarecloth be in the way.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat