Chickens in my pool - Jumping the Fence

[chickylou]

Good Morning,

I'm posting pictures of my pool which is 20x20 and sits right off the backside of our home.
We want to use this for our chickens and we've decided to build two coops on stilts with nesting boxes in the back so all we have to do is collect them from the deck.

QUESTION:

As you will see th pool is above ground and about 4 ft high with the surrounding deck and then another rail around the deck.

Do we need to put netting over the whole pool? How high can chickens jump/fly/flutter?
We'd like to keep it open. We'll be netting and putting lattice around the inside and outside for clean look, but wondering about the openness on the top.

We'll have about 15 chickens.

Don't mind the trash. We remodeled and waiting for spring dumpster.

Any thoughts?

Here is the height about 4ft plus rail beyond.

Here is the actual width.

Thanks in Advance

 

[AHappychick]

I would cover it with netting or some sort of protection you can get that srtong nylon (I think) netting and stretch it over the raillings and fasten with zip ties otherwise something might eat your chooks.

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

4 foot is to short for a lot of breeds. I bunch of silkies or standard cochins would stay in.

 

[raizin]

That looks pretty cool. You can run an electric fence wire around the deck at floor height to keep the predators from climbing up your deck leg supports. Then you really just need to decide if the flying predators are an issue in your neck of the woods. Some places they are worse than others. I have an open top run and let my chickens free range. I have never lost one to airborne predators and I have three sets of mating hawks and a pair of mated Barn owls here. If you do cover the decking then attach posts that sit ten feet higher than the deck. Take a high tension wire/cable and string those over the deck side to side. Then string the bird netting over that. just use wire ties to attach the bird netting to itself and to the cable.
Now that I say that, are you putting the chicken coops inside the pool? If so just do this around the pool edge. I have an eight foot enclosure and my chickens can fly to the top of it and get out if they want. I have on hen who thinks this is grand. I see her out every day now. I would still run a hot electric wire around the outside of the pool at about 6 inches height. The four legged critters have brutalized me and I have not had a single death since I ran electric fencing.

enjoy, the chickens. They are a hoot.