Chicken wire?

[morf2540]

OK, I get it. I've been reading this forum. Chicken wire is useless. Get the hardware cloth. Done. So my question is: if chicken wire is useless for chickens, then what is it used for?

 

[Kelsie2290]

Chicken wire is used mostly to keep chickens in, in places where you don't have to worry about anything else getting in and killing them. Also to line other fences etc to keep out sparrows or smaller birds from coming in or chickens from sticking their heads out.

 

[Granny Hatchet]

chicken wire is for poor people like me that cant afford hardware cloth. i use the wire on some things like the bigger chickens but not for babies. i have coons ,coyotes, u name it but its used for a big area. the only problem ive had so far is that its only 3 yrs. old and rusting. i did have it in my brooder but the coons got some of my babies so that is replaced with the cloth.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

Quote: It's only "useless" for keeping large predators out.

It works wonderfully for keeping CHICKENS out of gardens.
It can be used WITH larger wire to keep chickens from passing through the larger, stronger wire

It has many uses, but can't be trusted ALONE for some purposes

 

[morf2540]

Very good answers. Thank you!

 

[grandwake]

We used the chicken wire for our run because hardware cloth is too dang expensive! Our coop is secured with hardware cloth though, so no risk of predators at night while they are inside. We live in a fairly urban area though. So while there is the occasional coyote or coon, its never been a problem for us. The biggest pest we have is a skunk who loves to dig holes in our yard!

 

[DesigningLife]

Chicken wire (while it does tend to break and rust easily), can also be used as a deterrent to digging predators when a strip is buried around the perimeter of the run/coop area.

I used the green vinyl-covered wire fencing for my run so that it would be less prone to rusting. The salesman at Menard's told me the only way a predator would get through that is if it was "running REALLY fast", lol...unless of course it is small enough to squeeze through the little openings, lol, or digs underneath the entire fence. A 50 foot roll of 48" high fencing of that type here is $40. Between my two close neighbors and myself, there are 7 dogs and a cat "all around" the area at various times outside which really helps keep predators at bay.

 

[Granny Hatchet]

thats really good price. i pay that for chicken wire. mine is rusting and when i painted the coop, i ran the roller over it too. we will see if it stops it or not. i also did a chicken wire floor but its buried under about 8 in. of bedding and debri . its probably gone by now