Fox-proofing

[fairyfinn]

I'm looking into getting a few hens for my small back garden. I live on the outskirts of a fairly small town in the UK. My garden is bordered on two sides by a brick wall, and the third and fourth sides are enclosed partly by buildings and partly by wooden fencing. I intend to let them free range in the garden, and was wondering how best to make it chicken and predator proof. The walls and fence are a little over 1.5 meters, and the fence is made of overlapping wooden slats

 

[Bear1978]

Welcome to BYC!!
How big is your garden? Do you have pics of it? Foxes, like other predators like to dig and can climb to some degree. So with them being out in the open and free ranging, even with a set up such as yours I’m not sure you’ll be able to make it 100% fox safe. Once a fox discovers there’s a source of relatively easy and free food available they’ll do all they can to get to it.

Perhaps an electric fence installed around the outside perimeter of your garden. And then install an anti-dig apron using some hardware cloth laid on top of the ground and fastened to the ground with 12in landscape/tent stakes and fastened to the structures with washers and screws. For that method, about 1/2in hardware cloth of about 19 gauge thickness will work. If you have a dog maybe start off early with getting it associated with the chickens so maybe it will be a decent watch dog for foxes and the like.They make anti predator spray to spray around livestock like that.
Then there’s overhead predators too like hawks and other birds of prey, but I’m not sure what you have there in the UK? So there may be that threat too. With free ranging there’s always a chance to loose a chicken to predators.
Anyway, here’s a pic of my anti dig apron u was referring to so you’ll have a better idea of the concept. Good luck!!

 

[Flockincrazy]

I always recommend the hot pepper trick on top of the wire fencing to do this you have to get the hottest peppers you can get your hands on and then crush them especially the seeds put it on the parameter of your run and coop in your case your garden on the outside of the walls fox especially hate this cause they search with their nose to the ground so when they hit the hot peppers it gets in their nose and burns and soon they realize if i smell over there my nose will burn reapply if it rains alot where your at every week if not rainy season once a month since I started to use this i have had zero invasions

 

[fairyfinn]

I always recommend the hot pepper trick on top of the wire fencing to do this you have to get the hottest peppers you can get your hands on and then crush them especially the seeds put it on the parameter of your run and coop in your case your garden on the outside of the walls fox especially hate this cause they search with their nose to the ground so when they hit the hot peppers it gets in their nose and burns and soon they realize if i smell over there my nose will burn reapply if it rains alot where your at every week if not rainy season once a month since I started to use this i have had zero invasions

That's a great trick! I'd never heard of it before. Thank you

 

[cmom]

Do you have any pictures of the area?