Coyote-Proofing a Run in the Desert

[cmom]

You can lay welded wire fencing or chicken wire on the ground all along the outside perimeter of your electric fence .Then attach your ground wire to it. Anything that walks on it and touches the hot wires at the same time will get zapped.

I have laid some welded wire on the ground with no ground wire attached to it and forgot to turn off the power and got zapped.

 

[McChooky]

I have laid some welded wire on the ground with no ground wire attached to it and forgot to turn off the power and got zapped.

I've heard it can do that if the fence has got enough juice lol

 

[Ponypoor]

The kids will learn. I put a cutoff switch on the coop under my fence charger but most of the time I simply unplug it from where it is plugged in in my barn which is behind the coops.

Yep kids learn fast - then drag a friend over and zap them by grabbing the hot wire

The predators learn to stay away.

 

[cmom]

YouTube took this video off but I still have the picture. I don't advocate trying this.

 

[Sara S]

Hi Everyone, I’m in a bit of a quandary here as I can’t seem to keep coyotes out of our run.

Our property has a chain-link perimeter fence and the run has its own wooden fence. As suggested, I dug down about a foot deep and attached wire mesh to secure the base of the run fence.

In addition, I piled cinder blocks around the entire interior fence and covered that in wire and cacti, hoping it would act as a sort of “apron.”

However, the coyote easily tunneled under both fences and killed 14/16 birds. The hole was probably about 1.5 feet down and at least 3 feet across. We also have a large dog that warns us when there's a coyote around, but this all happened in the 45 minutes we left the property to take him for a walk.

Now, I live in the desert and clearly the coyotes can dig as far down into the dirt as they need to gain access. Plus, we have a huge population of coyotes here (we see and hear packs of them almost every day).

So, I suppose my question is, is there any way to proof this run? At this point, I think I would need some kind of secure flooring to be sure that nothing could come up through the ground.

It would seem that an electric fence would be easy to dig under, but perhaps conventional wisdom would be that the predator would trip the wire at some point and be deterred.

Thanks for your help!

In my coop I attached wiring 3 feet outwards, it was super thick wire hardware cloth. And then I took about 6inches of dirt out inside their whole run and put hardware cloth inside there too covering the whole bottom. (I put about 2 feet of dirt on top so they could still dust bathe and scratch around without getting stuck on wires) I’m sure you could do this with your fence and I’m so sorry for your loss Prayers they stay safe!

 

[cmom]

Hi Everyone, I’m in a bit of a quandary here as I can’t seem to keep coyotes out of our run.

Our property has a chain-link perimeter fence and the run has its own wooden fence. As suggested, I dug down about a foot deep and attached wire mesh to secure the base of the run fence.

In addition, I piled cinder blocks around the entire interior fence and covered that in wire and cacti, hoping it would act as a sort of “apron.”

However, the coyote easily tunneled under both fences and killed 14/16 birds. The hole was probably about 1.5 feet down and at least 3 feet across. We also have a large dog that warns us when there's a coyote around, but this all happened in the 45 minutes we left the property to take him for a walk.

Now, I live in the desert and clearly the coyotes can dig as far down into the dirt as they need to gain access. Plus, we have a huge population of coyotes here (we see and hear packs of them almost every day).

So, I suppose my question is, is there any way to proof this run? At this point, I think I would need some kind of secure flooring to be sure that nothing could come up through the ground.

It would seem that an electric fence would be easy to dig under, but perhaps conventional wisdom would be that the predator would trip the wire at some point and be deterred.

Thanks for your help!

Just curious if you are sure it was a coyote. I have had them kill birds in the past but a bobcat dug under one of my fences one night and killed 14 birds. It made the mistake of coming back. I have several cameras and have seen other bobcats since.