Chicken wire?

[Jencleg]

Quote:
Seriously? How much more expensive? Neither is very expensive, all things considered. I think I spent maybe $20 on my hardware cloth apron!

Then I shouldl send you $20 & you can grab me some & ship it down

for enought h/w cloth to do the outside of mine would be about $100 verses the $50 the chicken wire cost us....

 

[wyoDreamer]

The hardware cloth my husband bought was 2 1/2 times what the same amount of green coated chicken wire cost.

 

[pawsplus]

Well, it's up to you. IMO it's a waste of $$ to do it that way--you may well lose chickens and then end up putting the hardware cloth on anyway (after the horses are out of the barn, as they say). It's always better to do it the best you can from the get-go.

 

[Nostalchic]

If you are putting 1" chicken wire (2" is utterly useless) up along chain-link fence - which is VERY sturdy - and they have lots of room (thus not crowded against the fence) AND you have considered the possibility of someone digging under the fence and covered that somehow, you might be ok. I do have a hardware cloth apron over welded wire horse fence around most of my run, but on the house/garden side (least likely to have predators approach from there) I put chicken wire and it's been fine. Chicks sometimes can get their heads thru the chicken wire, and some dogs - and doubtless other hungry critters - will just bite their heads off when they do (a Jack Russell specialty, I believe) - very yucky. Gotta consider the potential predators, and in some areas, maybe yours, it's just not such a problem.

 

[Jencleg]

Quote:
We have had them for 2 1/2 - 3 months & the ONLY predator I have had is my very own dog.

but I was neglectful and allowed it to happen. Since we have lived there, we have a habit of putting our trash on the front porch at night when I clean up the kitchen till morning and we have never seen a critter or had problems.....

 

[gale65]

Quote:
Seriously? How much more expensive? Neither is very expensive, all things considered. I think I spent maybe $20 on my hardware cloth apron!

You got a good deal then. I bought a 2' x 5' long roll for making a rabbit hutch and it was almost $10 (over 10 with tax).

 

[a6a5puma]

Where I live (Michigan) we have racoons, foxes, rats, gophers,hawks, basicly everything. and for my duck coop that I made all i did was bury the chicken wire/ hardware cloth approx. 2-4 inches deep without anything under the whole run and i havent had a problem yet with predators coming after my Pekins yet.

 

[hippychickster]

We also live in Michigan in the suburbs about 40 mins north of Detroit. We originally listened to the guy at Tractor supply and bought heavy gauge panel wire. Holes are about 2 x 4 for the run. We buried about 5 feet deep plywood lined with chicken wire (we have personally seen coyotes in the area and wanted to be sure no digging). The run is up against the brick garage but still we even lined that with the wire. Well our neighbor came over and told us they had chickens and apparently we have minks in the area. (needless to say they lost theirs ) He said they could easily get though the holes on the fence. (still mad at the tractor supply guy!!) They live on a man made lake about 2 blocks away. So we bought chicken wire (hardware cloth is triple the amount and we already spent 200 on the other stuff) and re-enforced the entire run and around the coop with chicken wire on top of the other wire. Even the top. The coop is really secure, no windows just metal vents.

I WAS feeling pretty secure about it until reading all the posts about coons ripping open chicken wire.