Friendly reminder - paint your hardware cloth

[Doc7]

Painting hardware cloth black (suppose you could use any dark green, navy, etc, whatever you have left over from painting your coop) boosts chicken visibility, especially at distance on bright days, a lot!!

with a small roller it only takes a few minutes to do your whole run.

 

[Stipenvlerk]

Good tip! Thanks... I thinks many people don’t know this (I didn’t)
Goes the same for ducks?

Or do you mean you can see them better instead of the other way around?

 

[perkolator]

What if you don’t want it painted?

 

[Doc7]

Good tip! Thanks... I thinks many people don’t know this (I didn’t)
Goes the same for ducks?

Or do you mean you can see them better instead of the other way around?

Visibility OF your chickens for the human to see them at greater distances.

 

[Doc7]

What if you don’t want it painted?

free country!

I only say it for people who have HC’ed their run but find it difficult to look and see them from A couple hundred yards away. With the dark paint it’s like there is no hardware cloth at all.

 

[aart]

What kind of paint did you use?
I remember painting galvanized swing chains when my kids were little,
it peeled off pretty quickly.

 

[Doc7]

What kind of paint did you use?
I remember painting galvanized swing chains when my kids were little,
it peeled off pretty quickly.

I used whatever cheap sample paint from Lowe’s I had, 3 years ago. None of it is peeled.

 

[Doc7]

Here is a zoom in from the above image showing the difference of paint and non painted sections (after 3 years in which the paint has gathered some dust to lighten it, which makes it less contrast). Note how the HC “disappears” where painted.

 

[K0k0shka]

I painted my HC black with RustOleum spray paint meant for metal surfaces. The HC really does disappear, I LOVE it! I did it for looks alone. The coop and run are in my suburban back yard and I have to look at them every day, so they had to be nice to look at. Bare HC reflects light and looks ugly (to me). Now it has disappeared and, together with the dark-stained wooden frame, makes for one sexy-looking structure