For the last ten years my husband and I have taken in unwanted chickens and roosters. Our largest rescue was 43 chickens of various breeds and 17 ducks. People whose birds we take are told that the birds will be free ranging during the day and may be taken by predators, but at night are securely protected in thick plywood covered coops with locking doors.
We don't release the birds until at least 9:00 am on the theory that the predators will have made their morning kill by then. Our main loss is to coyotes. We have a collie who does the best she can to protect the birds, but free rangers are always at risk.
I have built seven chicken houses and am currently using four. I have tried every form of fencing. Welded 2" X 4" with the bottom buried in the ground about a foot works well to protect them while they are awake, but they MUST be in a fully enclosed coop at night.
Welded wire will eventually come apart at the welds in a few years. You just have to check your fencing periodically the same as any cattle farmer would do. Same reason, different scale. You can run chicken wire over the top of the run using 7' - 8' posts of hazel or alder scavenged from a woodlot, if you have one (we do.). Just leave a fork at the top of the stick, poke it into the wire on top and and it will stay there. Don't bother burying it - it will only rot off at ground level. My neighbor, who has more money than we do, has framed his run top with 2" X 4"s to hold the wire up. That's the best way because snow can't crush it. My strongest run has a roof of metal panels on 2" X 4" frame supported by 4" X 4"s.
Our maternity ward is a horse stall with 1/2" hardware cloth stapled to every bit of it and run across the floor. Yes, it costs money but it's a one time expense. Hardware cloth lasts for years. It will eventually come apart, too, but ours is ten years old and hasn't come apart yet.
I learned all these things the hard way. We lost 7 turkey poults to coyotes a few years ago. The poults wanted to perch in the tree in our covered chicken wire maternity run. We humored them. Coyotes dug under the wire which was only buried 6". In the morning all we had left was a pile of white feathers. Chicken wire has it's uses, but no way will it keep predators out or chickens in, if they are determined to get out. It is NOT woven. It is twisted together and it can be untwisted. Take a piece of it apart and you will see what I mean.
You have a learning curve to go through. We all love our chickens, but sometimes we lose one or more. Yes, it hurts. Do the best you can and try not to beat yourself up over your mistakes. Let your friends and neighbors know that you will welcome any used building materials they want to throw away. I just made a 40" X 30' run out of a chain link dog run that one of my neighbors gave me and a "chicken conservatory" out of five big plate glass windows, also scavenged. My farrier is bringing me used metal paneling today so I can make a roof for the "conservatory" and the new double walled insulated chicken house. BTW, JanetS, I'm 72.
