Soooo, hi! I’m new here! I’ve had perhaps 24 hens over the years and each have eventually succumb to some kind of predation. We’d like to start raising dual purpose chickens and step one before we buy a starter flock is to build a fence that is as predator proof as money can allow. I have 2 or 3 design ideas. Also possibly important to note is this will be 350 linear feet of fencing and on some pretty serious slope a lot of the time. Here’s a list of my design ideas.
1: 4 feet fencing using 2”x4” woven wire, unburied. 2-4 strands of barbed wire at the top to bring the height to 5’. 2’ of 1/2” hardware cloth. One foot above ground and one foot buried. Two strands of hot wire, one of them just above the hardware cloth and one near the top, probably the tippy top.
2: Same as above but instead of burying a foot of hardware cloth, using the spare foot as an apron.
3: Instead of 4 feet high woven wire, using 5 foot woven wire. We have some Great Pyrenees that prowl the neighborhood so I feel like getting to 5’ high is necessary be it with the barb strands over 4’ fencing or actual 5’ stock fencing and no barbed wire. If I get the 5’ foot woven wire, I simply can’t afford the hardware cloth. I could probably get 1’ cloth to put on the bottom of the fence, but I wouldn’t have any to bury. I would also do two hot wires with this setup as well.
I can’t really think of any other options. I’m hoping that the first or second option will suffice. The only question in my mind about it is if using barbed wire strands to make the additional foot of height will suffice to keep giant breed dogs out. I know that they aren’t tense enough to keep them from just pulling the wire down, but I would like to think that having a hot wire at the very top would deter them enough from trying to pull the barbed strands down. I’m not too certain about effective aprons. Since I can’t afford 3’ hardware cloth, my apron could only be about 1 foot. It will be a ton of labor to do 350’ of sloping fencing, so I don’t want to make an apron of it isn’t going to be super effective. I don’t mind burying a foot of hardware cloth if that would be more effective. I feel like I’ve read conflicting options on what’s better. I think I’ve read that determined predators would just assume dig all the way down past the foot of buried fencing, which is why I was leaning towards an apron. I could possibly afford to bury a foot of hardware cloth AND make a 1’ apron using welded wire. New idea!!
I should mention I guess that the predators I’m trying to keep out are weasels, raccoons, skunks and dogs. I don’t think we have much else to worry about. I’ve cleared trees away from the outside of where the fence will be and feel pretty darn confident that nothing will be able to jump in from outside
There will absolutely be nights that my wife and I won’t be home until midnight from work to shut the coop door, hence why I feel so strong about keeping raccoons and weasels our of their run.
thank you kindly in advance for any suggestions!! I’m ready to get this project rolling, just gotta finalize the design and feel really good about it because it is going to be very costly and very labor intensive. It has to be done right the first time considering how large this run will be!
1: 4 feet fencing using 2”x4” woven wire, unburied. 2-4 strands of barbed wire at the top to bring the height to 5’. 2’ of 1/2” hardware cloth. One foot above ground and one foot buried. Two strands of hot wire, one of them just above the hardware cloth and one near the top, probably the tippy top.
2: Same as above but instead of burying a foot of hardware cloth, using the spare foot as an apron.
3: Instead of 4 feet high woven wire, using 5 foot woven wire. We have some Great Pyrenees that prowl the neighborhood so I feel like getting to 5’ high is necessary be it with the barb strands over 4’ fencing or actual 5’ stock fencing and no barbed wire. If I get the 5’ foot woven wire, I simply can’t afford the hardware cloth. I could probably get 1’ cloth to put on the bottom of the fence, but I wouldn’t have any to bury. I would also do two hot wires with this setup as well.
I can’t really think of any other options. I’m hoping that the first or second option will suffice. The only question in my mind about it is if using barbed wire strands to make the additional foot of height will suffice to keep giant breed dogs out. I know that they aren’t tense enough to keep them from just pulling the wire down, but I would like to think that having a hot wire at the very top would deter them enough from trying to pull the barbed strands down. I’m not too certain about effective aprons. Since I can’t afford 3’ hardware cloth, my apron could only be about 1 foot. It will be a ton of labor to do 350’ of sloping fencing, so I don’t want to make an apron of it isn’t going to be super effective. I don’t mind burying a foot of hardware cloth if that would be more effective. I feel like I’ve read conflicting options on what’s better. I think I’ve read that determined predators would just assume dig all the way down past the foot of buried fencing, which is why I was leaning towards an apron. I could possibly afford to bury a foot of hardware cloth AND make a 1’ apron using welded wire. New idea!!
I should mention I guess that the predators I’m trying to keep out are weasels, raccoons, skunks and dogs. I don’t think we have much else to worry about. I’ve cleared trees away from the outside of where the fence will be and feel pretty darn confident that nothing will be able to jump in from outside
There will absolutely be nights that my wife and I won’t be home until midnight from work to shut the coop door, hence why I feel so strong about keeping raccoons and weasels our of their run.
thank you kindly in advance for any suggestions!! I’m ready to get this project rolling, just gotta finalize the design and feel really good about it because it is going to be very costly and very labor intensive. It has to be done right the first time considering how large this run will be!
