Electric Poultry Netting??

[chickenannie]

And keep in mind that birds living on stinky, slimy poo is not just a concern for the humans, it is a health hazard for the birds -- they can get sick and die. It's important to give the birds a good bedding or area to walk/lie down in.

I agree with the folks who are making the point that these birds do not walk far. Generally they will just sit at the feeder, and maybe get up and walk up to 5 feet away to lie down. Then back again. Keep in mind that Cornish X do not behave like regular chickens!

 

[Baybrio]

I had 20 Cornish/X last summer. We used the electric netting from Premier.

Our "tractor" was a 6' x 6' dog pen with a solid plywood roof that we found free on Craigslist. I moved it around a few times but it was just too hard to move. We finally ended up moving the tractor permanently on the gravel driveway. The netting enclosed lawn space and the tractor. We put pallets on the ground in the tractor and added pine shaving as bedding. Using this method I was able to keep the bedding dry by adding bedding every few days. I believe I changed out all the bedding 2 or 3 times. This saved the lawn and was much easier than trying to move the "tractor". You need a well drained area to make this work.

I did close them in every night after we lost one to an owl.

Our Cornish/x's would use the whole area in the morning and the evening, grazing and chasing bugs. During the day they mostly stayed in the tractor. I added a fan during the hottest days. I put feeders and waters both inside and outside of the tractor. (I took the food away at night).

Our lawn was fine.

The problem I had with the netting is that you need to keep the grass short under the netting, which means you either have to move the netting and mow or kill the grass under the netting. This is not a big deal if you can pull out the posts with your hand and push them back in with your foot, I couldn't. We have hard clay soil and I had to use a hammer to both pull the posts out and put them back in.

This year I'm trying colored rangers from JM. I'm using the same tractor, but I've set the whole thing up in a unused horse paddock. My chicks are still to young to put out there, but I've already put up the netting and killed the weeds/grass with herbicide. We'll see how this works.

 

[vermontgal]

I started out with a tractor (4x6) for 12 colored rangers, but moving it every day was too much and I felt they were too crowded. Being too cheap to purchase the electric poultry-netting for so few birds, I bought a 50' roll of 3' high welded wire fence. For 12 colored rangers, I moved the fence about once a week. In the run, it got mildly poopy in a week, not too bad. Worse right around their feed. The 50' roll made an area about 10x15 (150 sq ft).

A 40x40 area = 1600 ft; an equivalent population density would be 128 birds. So, based on my experience (mind you with Colored Rangers), I would think that moving the poultry fence once every 10 days would be ok for 100 birds, and then probably once a week at the end.

I also continued to use the tractor as their coop, attached to the welded-wire run. Inside the coop/tractor, it got pretty poopy in a week. Their primary feed was in the tractor, and they would be closed up in the tractor in the mornings before we let them out (2-3 hours from dawn to release). We closed them into the tractor right around dusk, so they were rarely confined in the evening. I put down a layer of hay to prevent slick poop on the yard. When I moved the tractor, I composted the hay / poop mass.

 

[JoAnn_WI_4-H_Mom]

Quote:
So you move it. This stuff is designed to be highly portable.

Not everyone has several spots iin there yard where they can fence off such a large area. I move it around a lot and have lots of options. Those with fewer options may need to keep fewer chickens.

 

[Buster52]

Quote:
So you move it. This stuff is designed to be highly portable.

Not everyone has several spots iin there yard where they can fence off such a large area. I move it around a lot and have lots of options. Those with fewer options may need to keep fewer chickens.

I think that goes without saying.

 

[Brunty_Farms]

According to Jaku I think he has limited space which is why he it trying to convert to a 40x40 area... doesn't want to tear up his yard. I'm sure if he had a 10 acre pasture he would be using it... instead of his yard...

 

[jaku]

Yeah, I have six acres, but it's wooded. I'm happy with my tractors, I just figured if I could put them in the woods, I wouldn't have to steer my 2 year old clear of the poo areas. I have over an acre of yard though, so I can manage. Thanks for the info everyone- I should have figured the poo would be too much! Not that it would matter in the woods, but where I would have put them is upwind from my house, so that plan is out! I'll just stick with the pens.

 

[brandywine]

I had 102 JM range broilers and 4 cornish X, plus 17 replacement layers, in the electrified poultry netting.

Starting with one length, I moved it about once a week.

As they got bigger, I added the second length of netting.

Their last location, I used the back of the woodshed and some cattle panels as additional "walls" and they got a very large pen where they could range with my goats if they chose, but the goats couldn't get into their feed. They were up there for two weeks or so.

My biggest discovery was that they do best when under trees and scrub. They really preferred that to open pasture, and did a good job cleaning up the ground where the goats were browsing.

Some of the rangers even roosted in the apple trees.

So using a weed whacker and pruning shears to clear a path through the scrubby woods for the fence, then letting the chooks go to town is the plan for future batches.

 

[JoAnn_WI_4-H_Mom]

I also have found the birds prefer to be in taller grass, brush or trees. I'm really tempted to get a solar fence charger to move the birds farther afield, we have some great potential pasture that is a little too far from an outlet....

 

[Buster52]

Quote:
Yeah, we are planning on solar from the git-go. You are completely free then.