Dixie Chicks

[minihorse927]

Shelby has a low red cell count and is weak but I'm going to get her! He feels she will do better once she is back home and around people she is used to!

 

[CanuckBock]

Double net... excellent. Makin notes here

Yeh and you lucky persons in the desert won't have to really contend with some Coast snows that stick to the netting and can tear it on down if you are not out thar ensuring the sticky snows and ice are NOT too heavy on the netting!

Edit to mention...this also applies to those that keep pheasants (not jest ducks) as that is also a strategy pheasants will use to avoid being eaten by predators...BURSTING into flight.

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:
yep about 72 hours worth. I knew about Pheasant and quail. They shoot straight up. and Bonk their heads on the roof.

We dont have bald eagles but we have everything else.... Red Tailed hawk, Falcons, Owls of various kinds. Even the chinklink roof needed a partition to keep the birds from coming close to the exterior walls. But I never thought about doing net double.

Net will even keep out the cats... Bob Cat and Mountain lion. Yep they could probably rip a hole in it but they wont walk on surfaces that move.

The Random cord thing works too. No place to land or get in. but I worry that they may do something stupid like Fall in. Once in they would not be able to get out. Lets see... Trapped... with a buffet? Then again they use it at the San Diego Zoo.

I will have 24 by 50+ free area that will be netted. I hope to have the net supported by cables a good ten feet above the ground. I could hang an additional net inside and under. Something cheap. easy to replace.

deb

 

[hennible]

Shelby has a low red cell count and is weak but I'm going to get her! He feels she will do better once she is back home and around people she is used to!

Glad she's coming home!

 

[CanuckBock]

yep about 72 hours worth. I knew about Pheasant and quail. They shoot straight up. and Bonk their heads on the roof.

We dont have bald eagles but we have everything else.... Red Tailed hawk, Falcons, Owls of various kinds. Even the chinklink roof needed a partition to keep the birds from coming close to the exterior walls. But I never thought about doing net double.

Net will even keep out the cats... Bob Cat and Mountain lion. Yep they could probably rip a hole in it but they wont walk on surfaces that move.

The Random cord thing works too. No place to land or get in. but I worry that they may do something stupid like Fall in. Once in they would not be able to get out. Lets see... Trapped... with a buffet? Then again they use it at the San Diego Zoo.

I will have 24 by 50+ free area that will be netted. I hope to have the net supported by cables a good ten feet above the ground. I could hang an additional net inside and under. Something cheap. easy to replace.

deb

Besides the winged predators, the most aggressively hard to keep at bay predators for us are grizzly bears and cougars, never mind tiny weasels could become an issue some day. Sheep barn has welded wire panels over windows and a sliding barn door but don't do one much good when the young black bear swung by chased by neighbours into our place in the DAYtime...ack.

Jacobs calmly noted bear in the background...YIKES!
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The lower level of net could even be chicken wire (yeh, I know...dumb name as "chicken" wire don't usually even keep chooks in!) or as the link I posted says, something orange (get a deal on snow fence if you find any in your area Deb?

) but then again, other than our greenhouse and new orchard area, colour co-ordination for orange is kinda difficult. But hey, desert area, terra cotta look. I do know you are designing yer coops to be purdy too...something to admire past how pretty poultry is.

We use hardware cloth in most all applications (seen a red tailed hit it full tilt and we both laughed our butts off...you may view the birds nicely, soft and not harmful to birds hitting it, or birds of prey hitting it on the other side either...dang hawk!), but with hardware cloth, one may avoid using it in areas where it gets wet as the coatings may leach and poison yer birds (canary in the mine shaft syndrome...birds lean towards being more sensitive and kicking before creatures like us get ill). One time Rick had some hardware cloth over the winter tub for his pond fish (they jump too but sans water, leads to their deaths--ugh) and he noted he lost a fish...the bubbles of water from the filtration system leached some of the uglies off the hardware cloth into the water. Quick water change and new top not with hardware cloth--we learned from that blunder tout sweet. Fun how we all learn the HARD ways, eh.

Red Golden Pheasant hen in front of hardware cloth



Silver Pheasant pair behind hardware cloth​

I would suggest that one avoids stucco wire...I know it's cheap but we had some from a crow recovery cage that we put up for a pheasant and she lost an eye on it...ended up dead from this injury. So I guess, chicken wire is less nasty (softer, better connections...stucco can have the joints bust and that could be what harms the birds...) if you want something wirish fer the inside top of the netted area.

Tara

 

[Ravynscroft]

Shelby has a low red cell count and is weak but I'm going to get her! He feels she will do better once she is back home and around people she is used to!

Yay!! Get well soon, Shelby!

 

[vehve]

I use 19x19mm stucco wire, and it works fine for me. But it seems to have pretty well done joints, of course the edges from where you cut it are sharp, but I try to get those on the outside. For the top of a run, you can't go wrong with a solid roof =) Just costs a bit much in larger applications.

Tara, your predators make me sweat. I'm glad all we have to worry about are chicken hawks and dachshunds.

Glad Shelby is coming home, hope she recovers quickly. Monitor her temps and make sure she eats, drinks and poops.

 

[perchie.girl]

My main predator issues are the Canine variety. Bob cat and Mountain Lion tend to be seasonal. Usually about the time they are raising young. of course they will go right over a six foot chain-link kennel panel.

Well aware of the leach issues. This is an issue with ALL Galvanized metal. Thank goodness the climate is dry here. I inherited an aviary cage from a woman who had hook bills. apparently they had been chewing on the wire and got very sick. She gave me a cage that was worth about 600 dollars at the time. course her birds were worth twice that.

At the time I was raising parakeets in the same kind of cage. no issues. So I raised finches in that cage. When I moved up to the house in the desert I bought more cage wire to make a cattery. Whole other story but it never got used.

Then a neighbor came along and gave me FOUR connected aviaries the same size as the parrot one. His father had been raising cocatiels but had retired from it due to health. So Now I have enough wire to do the whole exterior of the poultry house.

To give you an example the wire is 12.5 gauge and the spacing is 1/2 x 3. A six by six foot panel runs around 80.00 last time I bought one.



This cage runs around 350 but I buy ready panels that are 6 x 6 feet. But I noticed that you can buy a ready panel up to twelve feet long. Might be worth it to bite the bullet and ditch the kennel pannels. These cages are self supporting. and the manufacturer is three miles away so no shipping.

https://www.wingzstore.com/ready-panel.html

But For the run I want horse no climb fence they are five feet tall and I definitely can line the bird access portions with something finer. For chick containment at least.

Oooh they have added chicken section.....

FWIW this is where I got my incubator a few years back.
deb "Off I go"

 

[vehve]

Deb, might be an idea to ask for off cuts or similar stuff if the manufacturer is that close by. A gift of a bottle of scotch might go a long way too...

 

[BriardChickens]

Good...I kinda thought you would have this under control but worth mentioning in case anyone else was oblivious to how them dang winged predators can slaughter a pen of birds--everything dead and nobody getting a meal outta it even.

Back on the Coast I remember coming outta the house one morn as a kid off to school to see a Bald Eagle perched on our chicken run, licking its beak and contemplating which chook was to be for breakfast once I let them outta their chicken house--needless to say the chickens stayed inside the house until I could come home from school and get my father involved in ensuring the run was eagle proof!

Raccoons wreaked havoc with us kid chicken keepers--killing some of ours and a girlfriend's too. Nothing like battling a predator that climbs, chews, and has "human digit like hands" to pry things open with. I do NOT miss those masked bandits one iota!

Still got the Balds to consider here...

Taken from the edge of our Ram Pasture
Mature (at least 5 years old) Bald Eagle on the Left - thinking immature Bald or Red Tailed Hawk on top right​

Pet subdivision deer got smoked on the highway this holiday season...winged scavengers ate well.

and counting down EIGHT weeks to go for you & them dependents!

Tara

Edit to add pic of winged predators...

Thanks Tara. I expect raccoons and winged predators to go after my animals. Possibly even rats... Thankfully no bears, cougars etc where we are headed. Gabriola Island hasn't seen a bear in years. They'd have to swim over from the downtown area of Nanaimo.

to make a long story short my rottweiler Shelby became increasingly sick since last weekend. I got her a vet appointment and she had a 4lb ovarian tumor removed. She's been having a rough time recovering

OMG, wow!! Hopefully she'll feel better once home!!

Shelby has a low red cell count and is weak but I'm going to get her! He feels she will do better once she is back home and around people she is used to!

Healing is easier at home, give her a day and you'll have to restrict her movement Rotti's are tough dogs

yep about 72 hours worth. I knew about Pheasant and quail. They shoot straight up. and Bonk their heads on the roof.

We dont have bald eagles but we have everything else.... Red Tailed hawk, Falcons, Owls of various kinds. Even the chinklink roof needed a partition to keep the birds from coming close to the exterior walls. But I never thought about doing net double.

Net will even keep out the cats... Bob Cat and Mountain lion. Yep they could probably rip a hole in it but they wont walk on surfaces that move.

The Random cord thing works too. No place to land or get in. but I worry that they may do something stupid like Fall in. Once in they would not be able to get out. Lets see... Trapped... with a buffet? Then again they use it at the San Diego Zoo.

I will have 24 by 50+ free area that will be netted. I hope to have the net supported by cables a good ten feet above the ground. I could hang an additional net inside and under. Something cheap. easy to replace.

deb

I think for your random lines I am thinking clothes line on the next run. Holds a ton of weight (if someone crashes into it), doesn't rust, etc.

I do remember my brother went to the local land fill back when he was in highschool. He said they strung lines across the land fill to keep the seagulls out. They strung the lines just a little less then wing span of a sh!t hog. Apparently it worked. I don't know what they used for their lines.