Hardware cloth. Attached Inside or Outside??

[harewizard]

Would love to hear your comments:

Where did you put yours and why?

I have pros and cons to both installing on the outside of the run frame and the inside of the run. Is there a good way? A Better way?


Just curious as to how you did it!

Lisa

 

[laughaha]

On the large (30' x 30') chicken run- outside with T-Posts on the inside. Just cuz it's alot easier. We don't have a top on the run, but we do have geese that seem to keep the flying predators away (in two years we've never lost a chicken to flying predators) which is a racing pigeon trick (they use decoys and move them around). We have alot of hawks and such on the back hill, but they won't even fly low over the chicken pen since we got the geese. They have no problem with checking out my rabbits in their hutches though. These chickens get locked in their coop nightly and the coop can survive a trip to oz and back.

The smaller breeding pens we are building- inside cuz it looks alot nicer. These do have wire mesh tops to the pens.

 

[my3jsons]

We don't have our covered either. We put our wiring on the outside. Two reasons. The first is it matched the rest of our fencing around the property and the second it was just easier this way. We have 6" diameter wood posts and we've found that the chickens like to lay beside the posts against the fence from time to time. It took my husband and I a full day to put up the wire fencing, what a chore. Have fun and look forward to seeing what you decide.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

Fence wIre generally goes on the side that needs to be strongest.
Since the strongest force against it would come from the outside, that's where it should be.

 

[EggsForIHOP]

I did all my wire (to date at least) on the outside - 2 thoughts that made me take it that way were: Sharp edges will be outside away from the chickies, anything that comes up and pushes on it to get in will have a harder time (like the neighbors giant dog) just saying...outside felt better in my mind...but then again so did about a million extra staples and unnecessary screws...

 

[chknlitl]

I put mine on the outside. I also went with hardware cloth instead of wire because if my little ones and the chickens. No metal wire to poke anyone. If my dog, or kids try to push aginst it, putting it on the outside is stronger.

 

[bigoakhunter]

Another vote for outside...it istronger that way to protect from animals trying to get through to get your chickens.

 

[JanetSmithery]

The "outside for security" response confused me until I realized that predators are more likely to push on the hardware cloth rather than pull. If it's attached from the inside, pushing might possibly push out the fasteners, particularly if you use staples of some sort.

 

[patandchickens]

On the top of the run (if there is a top) the wire mesh must ALWAYS be on the OUTSIDE, no exceptions.

On the sides of the run, normally you'd put it on the outside for the reasons described above.

However in the rather specialized case where the run is located in a truly dog-proof yard and your *only* significant predator will be raccoons, a reasonable argument can be made for putting the wire on the inside, as raccoons are better at pulling than pushing.

JMHO, good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[DaveBeaty]

I attached my hardware cloth to the outside of my welded wire because the way my run corners are constructed, there is more wood for the fender washers to hold the wire against on the outside.

If I was building a rabbit hutch, I could see the wisdom of putting the wire on the inside, so the bunny couldn't chew through the wood.

I don't *think* my chickens will be able to peck through a 2x4