electric netting

[Tapsmom]

Hi,
Does anyone use electric netting for their chickens? We currently have our temporary "chicken Fort Knox

We are building a barn and will be housing our horse, Nigerian Dwarf goats and chickens in there. The chickens will be at the back of the barn with the goats (seperate accomodations, though We will still have our "fort Knox" setup to keep them safe, but I would like to allow them some free range time and want to be able to rotate them around safely. The goats are currently in an electroweb fence. Would this work for the chickens, too? Any suggestions on how to let the safely look for snacks in the pasture? We live in a very wooded area that is ripe with predators,, coyotes, fox, fisher cats, bears and even "supposedly" mountain Lions.

 

[henpeckedmuch]

When I was a boy 50 yrs ago my grandfather who I lived with had a chicken and egg farm with up to 300,000 chickens on 50 acres. He ran a 100 mile delivery business from Detroit to Lum Michigan. They were what we would call free range today. We had a large Red barn, another barn that wouldv'e been about 5000 sq. feet and 4 other house size brooder coops that housed chicks and young birds in. During the day the hens were allowed to range around much of the property. They were enclosed by an electric fence with one wire about 6-8 inches off the ground and their was another line that was higher which kept in or out larger animals. This fence ran around most of the property. We would loose a few hens to hawks but back them hawks were not protected and Grampa would shoot them with a 22 rf. We also lost some hens once when the electric went off to a stray dog. Other than that we never had any trouble using electric fencing.
A friend of mine still uses it today and says he loves it. He houses chickens under his pigeon coop that are protected by electric fenceing.