electric fence question

[hungry4eggs]

I will be building my large coop soon and will have a 25 x 25' run, I will be installing an electric fence to keep the dogs out. Will it hurt the chickens if I run the wire through the hardware cloth to electify it, or will they be like the dogs, hit it once or twice and then leave it alone?

 

[4 the Birds]

I will be building my large coop soon and will have a 25 x 25' run, I will be installing an electric fence to keep the dogs out. Will it hurt the chickens if I run the wire through the hardware cloth to electify it, or will they be like the dogs, hit it once or twice and then leave it alone?

If the run is enclosed with hardware cloth then why do you want to add an elec fence? I suppose you could add a line down low on the outside to keep dogs or other predators from digging holes to get under the run fence. I am not an electrician but I don't think that electrifying hardware cloth works well or is what you want to do. Your elec line needs low resistance and hung on plastic insulators to function well. I believe that their is electrified poultry netting if you are wanting to go that route. By the way..... I have seen dogs go through electric fences and even climb over fences with barb wire on top (ours did that to chase a deer!)

 

[hungry4eggs]

My dogs will make short work of hardware cloth, they already have on the grow out coop which now has a pallet perimeter. If it will work I will run the wire from the fence charger through the hardware cloths perimeter. If I must place the fence around the run I will be close enough the dogs have to touch the wire.

 

[cafarmgirl]

Yeah I don't think I'd try to electrify the entire hardware cloth fence. I have a chain link run and I just ran my hot wire around the base on the outside, about 6 or 8 inches from the ground. Every dog that has approached my coop/run has gone sniffing around the perimeter, as is their nature, and has eventually put his nose on that hot wire. None of them has made a second attempt, it has been very, very effective. There are a few local farm dogs that occasionally stop by our place in the company of their owners, most have tested it and been zapped and now they all look at my chicken coop with great suspicion, as if there is a terrible monster lurking there, ready to sting them on the nose!

 

[4 the Birds]

Usually the harware cloth is not installed well and is ripped off instead of anything going through it. Especially 1/4" cloth. I use no-climb horse fencing for my run since the goats have access to it. No animal short of a Rhino is going through this stuff!