Electric poultry netting

[Gary Kenyon]

Do any of you have any experience with the electric poultry netting by Premier1? It gets great reviews on their site, but I haven't found any reviews anywhere else. I currently have electric fence which does a great job of keeping predators out, but considerably less great at keeping chickens in. I was thinking the electric poultry netting might be the solution.

 

[wamtazlady]

I have used Premier1 electric poultry netting. It may not solve your problem. The netting is better at keeping predators out than keeping chickens in. Mine is 48 inches tall. The younger pullets have gone over the top even with their wing clipped. I have never had an adult chicken or rooster go over, just the young ones. There are several members here who use Premier1's netting.

Unfortunately my netting got ruined by a deer. The netting was located close to an old wooden post. We think the buck was trying to rub his antlers. Instead he got caught up in the netting. Took 5 wildlife people to get him down on the ground and saw off his antlers. Antlers were too tangled to remove from the netting.

I never lost a chicken to a 4 legged predator while the netting was up.

 

[Sequel]

Do any of you have any experience with the electric poultry netting by Premier1? It gets great reviews on their site, but I haven't found any reviews anywhere else. I currently have electric fence which does a great job of keeping predators out, but considerably less great at keeping chickens in. I was thinking the electric poultry netting might be the solution.

One thing about the netting is you have to be vigilant in keeping grass and weeds very short. If you're planning on moving it every few days or a week it might be fine. That's why I'm not using it myself. Did a 6 foot woven wire field fence with a single hot strand. So far so good.... If you do get some let us know how it works for you! Good luck!

 

[Chef JimmyJ]

If you have predator control, Tenax Deer Fence may be of help. 6 and 7.5" Polypropylene Fence will do a better job of keeping Flyers in, but a determined Escape Artist is still likely to find a way. I have had great service from Deer Busters...JJ

 

[gtaus]

There are a number of people on YouTube that use the electric poultry netting by Premier1. Just about any video from Justin Rhodes shows him moving the fencing almost everyday. Anyway, he likes the netting. And of course, the other YouTubers who use it like it as well. I think it works great for some people.

I do not use the electric netting because my main predator concern during the daytime is Bald Eagles and hawks from overhead. An electric fence, by itself, would not stop aerial predators. So I use 6' 2x4 welded wire fencing with bird netting over it. That works for me.

 

[Gary Kenyon]

I have used Premier1 electric poultry netting. It may not solve your problem. The netting is better at keeping predators out than keeping chickens in. Mine is 48 inches tall. The younger pullets have gone over the top even with their wing clipped. I have never had an adult chicken or rooster go over, just the young ones. There are several members here who use Premier1's netting.

Unfortunately my netting got ruined by a deer. The netting was located close to an old wooden post. We think the buck was trying to rub his antlers. Instead he got caught up in the netting. Took 5 wildlife people to get him down on the ground and saw off his antlers. Antlers were too tangled to remove from the netting.

I never lost a chicken to a 4 legged predator while the netting was up.

I'm not having a problem with flyers. Somehow, I rather got brilliant chickens, or they are dumber than a bag of hammers. They have somehow figured out that by jumping up onto the bottom wire and ducking under the second wire they don't get zapped. I'm hoping the poultry netting will make that more difficult. Maybe I will keep the current electric fence up and put the poultry netting inside the perimeter of it to deter deer before they get to the netting. Thank you for the input.

 

[Gary Kenyon]

There are a number of people on YouTube that use the electric poultry netting by Premier1. Just about any video from Justin Rhodes shows him moving the fencing almost everyday. Anyway, he likes the netting. And of course, the other YouTubers who use it like it as well. I think it works great for some people.

I do not use the electric netting because my main predator concern during the daytime is Bald Eagles and hawks from overhead. An electric fence, by itself, would not stop aerial predators. So I use 6' 2x4 welded wire fencing with bird netting over it. That works for me.

It seems that everyone that has used it has had good results. I guess I will get some and see how it goes.

 

[Gary Kenyon]

If you have predator control, Tenax Deer Fence may be of help. 6 and 7.5" Polypropylene Fence will do a better job of keeping Flyers in, but a determined Escape Artist is still likely to find a way. I have had great service from Deer Busters...JJ

I don't have a flyer problem, they hop up onto the bottom strand and duck under the second strand. I'm hoping that with the netting being smallish squares they will be less likely to hop into them.

 

[Gary Kenyon]

One thing about the netting is you have to be vigilant in keeping grass and weeds very short. If you're planning on moving it every few days or a week it might be fine. That's why I'm not using it myself. Did a 6 foot woven wire field fence with a single hot strand. So far so good.... If you do get some let us know how it works for you! Good luck!

I have had great success using salt water to keep the weeds down along my fence line. I already have an electric fence, so this is needed regardless, but I do not want to use chemicals, especially around my animals. I have only used it one time as an experiment about three weeks ago and all of the weeds are still dead. I am hoping they stay dead for a good while. Thank you for the input.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It sounds like you have solved the big problem, grass and weeds growing up in the electric netting/fence and shorting it out when wet. Another issue you can have with netting is that trash like leaves in the fall or cut grass might blow against it or get washed against it in a heavy rain and short it out. You still have to do maintenance.

I have Preimier1 netting. Baby chicks can walk through electric netting until they physically get too big to fit. Their down/feathers insulate them. I would not expect an electric fence to keep adults in. Instead of netting the right solution for you might be to add some inexpensive mesh fencing/netting to your existing electric fence to stop the chickens from walking through.

My netting is 48" high. Chickens can easily fly over that if they want to. Mine don't want to with an exception. When I have a bunch of cockerels in there, they get into fights. On extremely rare occasions a pullet or hen gets desperate in trying to get away form an amorous cockerel or rooster. If a cockerel or female get trapped against the fence and are desperate to get away, they go vertical. Sometimes they land on the wrong side of the fence. It's almost always cockerels, very seldom a female with my flock.

I found a couple of things that make a big difference in how many get out this way. I keep my corners pretty flat. A 90 degree corner works pretty well, anything sharper tends to trap chickens. Flatter is better.

One time I set my netting up with a narrow corridor to get to from the coop to an area where I spread it out. I was getting two or three cockerels a day escape until I reconfigured it into a wide area. When I flatten corners and use wide areas the escape goes way down to pretty rare even with a bunch of cockerels in there.

If a chicken learns it can fly over the netting and wants to, they may get in that habit. I had three hens learn that, probably trying to escape an amorous rooster, when I had them in a 5' high wire mesh run. Those three got out every day once they learned. But other than the problem with fighting or escaping chickens, my 48" netting keeps them in. I've had it over five years. The only chickens I've lost top predators was one to an owl and one to a hawk.