Hardware cloth skirting with metal frame run

[krthaymp]

My hen house is secure so I haven’t troubled too much with skirting around my coop but today my hens made an escape so it’s a deal with it now issue.
I have a hoop house style run. Light weight aluminum hollow pipes. They go around the perimeter and arch over the top. I have chicken wire covering everything, but trying to install hardware cloth this evening and it was an epic fail.
I thought the general idea was to take a sheet of hardware cloth 4” wide and secure it two feet up the inside wall of the run, bend it at the bottom so it goes under the pipe and out onto the grass for the other half. Secure at the top and along the pipe.
I cannot explain how much I struggled with this, so I must be wrong about something.
I’m using electric fence wire cut in 4” pieces to tie it to the pipe and at the top to the chicken wire and of course up and down each pipe that crosses it.
At least that’s the idea, but I’ve done cut myself four times, my hand is not appreciating the work with the wire cutters or twisting the ties, it’s uneven, wrinkled, and not sitting right under the ground pipe frame.
Also, I was harassed by two enormous writer spiders that just about got themselves evicted to a chicken buffet despite me generally liking them present, but that’s neither here nor there.
All the articles and videos I can find are for wood frame runs with skirting and the skirting on the ground does not extend up the wall but ends where it is secured to the frame and that won’t work in my case.
Am I wrong that it goes up the side and out??

 

[rosemarythyme]

I feel you. I've torn up my hands using tin snips (from the pressure needed to make cuts), poked a dozen tiny holes on my fingertips, etc.

It's recommended to go up the side before bending out (otherwise you leave a seam running around the entire base which becomes an obvious weak point) but HWC is inherently a bit annoying to work with and yes it does wrinkle and buckle in weird places sometimes. Just gotta do the best you can to flatten it out before installing (and I've resorted to making cuts to make it lie flatter, almost like the reverse of dart seams on clothes).

 

[krthaymp]

I’ll take another crack at it tonight now that I’m a little more prepared for the apparent chaos that is hardware cloth.
Not going under the frame will be easier. I’m not digging it in yet because the coop will be relocated soon. Since I don’t have a wood frame to staple or screw in with washers, I was just going to use wire and tie it in, attaching it to the chicken wire, pipes where it touches on the vertical and horizontal ground pipe and then just stake the cloth down where the skirting ends in the yard.
That also means the dinosaur sized spiders can keep their homes in the inside corners since everything I do will be on the outside. Win for all.
If anyone has better suggestions for attaching the wire rather than basically metal twist ties made from electric fencing, I’m open to suggestions. I don’t have metal zip ties, just plastic, and those are not going to work.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Metal as "twist ties" are actually far better than plastic zip ties, so I'd stick with those especially to go around any of the framework. Other option is either hog rings or j-clips (I used hog rings) for wire-fence-on-wire-fence attachment. You would need special pliers for that, but they're fairly inexpensive.

 

[perkolator]

When I did the skirt of my 2nd run I had over 100ft of fence line to do by myself, so I had to come up with a plan that was less time consuming. Ended up doing this: roll out the HC on the ground and hold down with 2x4s, to use an angle grinder to cut HC into lengths around 8ft, the wood keeps it from curling up on you into your arms. I like the grinder because you can make factory-like edges that don't poke as much. I pre-bent the sections into an "L" shape before installing on the bottom of the stiffer wire fence. I installed from the exterior of the fence, not inside and passing underneath the fence like you described - that sounds not fun.

This is how I made the bends, hard to describe but worked for me. I first did some bending to remove most of the curl from being on a roll, then laid it down on flat ground, then set a straight 2x4 lumber across the line where I wanted my bend; I stood on top of the wood and grabbed the opposite side of the mesh; then I'd pull upward and toward myself past the 90-degree vertical mark, with sort of a jerk motion - this helped to start a nice straight bend across the length. For panels I wanted a tighter bend, I'd either rotate the whole thing 90-degrees and repeat on the other side, or just keep standing on top of the wood and whacked the other side with a scrap of wood, which made nice sharp bends.

To fix everything together I used galvanized fence wire and put in the work, doing about 6ft section at a time so that I could "sew" it together and have no loose edges that can catch on anything.

Here's mine, you'll see most of my skirt is only 12-18" where I didn't want/need a wide skirt, but the other sides not seen are wider around 2ft where the predator is more likely to come from

Good luck!

IMG_3866.jpg

• perkolator
• Jun 29, 2022

Improving a chicken run with hardware cloth perimeter and overhead chicken wire to keep the...

 

[krthaymp]

I installed from the exterior of the fence, not inside and passing underneath the fence like you described - that sounds not fun.

This is exactly what I was trying to figure out. I somehow got it in my head that this is how it's done - you install it going down the inside wall, under and then out. It didn't make sense, but I felt like I had read somewhere that specifically, this was best. This was not fun at all and 1000 times harder than I needed to make it.

I think I have a pretty good idea now of what I need to do, what I've been doing wrong, and how to fix it. I won't have time to mess with it today, but maybe tomorrow, or for sure this weekend.

Thanks all for the help!

 

[The Good Grumble]

Metal as "twist ties" are actually far better than plastic zip ties, so I'd stick with those especially to go around any of the framework. Other option is either hog rings or j-clips (I used hog rings) for wire-fence-on-wire-fence attachment. You would need special pliers for that, but they're fairly inexpensive.

I used the stainless steel zip ties! Love them!

 

[The Good Grumble]

When I put in the new run I folded my hardware cloth and hammered in no dig panels around the perimeter. These are awesome. https://digdefence.com/

Also you need some good tin snips, they do the job fast and easy without hand fatigue and getting chopped up.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Crescen...Cut-Drop-Forged-Tinner-Snips-WDF10S/315473360

If I’ve learned anything in my 52 years…it’s that I always try to do things the hard way first.

 

[krthaymp]

I used the stainless steel zip ties! Love them!

I almost got those but they were more than I wanted to spend right now.

 

[krthaymp]

When I put in the new run I folded my hardware cloth and hammered in no dig panels around the perimeter. These are awesome. https://digdefence.com/

Also you need some good tin snips, they do the job fast and easy without hand fatigue and getting chopped up.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Crescen...Cut-Drop-Forged-Tinner-Snips-WDF10S/315473360

If I’ve learned anything in my 52 years…it’s that I always try to do things the hard way first.

I appear to also be hard way a hard way first type.

I had snips but they were cheap and I got a better pair and that made a world of difference.