Have you seen the price

[Wise Woman]

of hardware cloth? I am ready to order the hardware cloth for our new run. I want to get the best I can so I decided on 16 gage 1/2" x 1/2" vinyl coated hardware cloth. A 4' by 100' roll is $290 on amazon and that is the cheapest I can find it, as I am a Prime member so there will be no shipping costs. I did find it cheaper elsewhere, but the shipping was more than the hardware cloth so that is out.

Holy chicken predators batman. When I told my husband the price, he almost fell over. I can get 1/2" by 1/2" 19 gage hardware cloth, also 4' by 100', locally for $119 a roll.

My practical side is saying go with the 19 gage but my do it right the first time side wants the 16 gage. My husband says I am getting carried away. Am I? In all the years we have been keeping chickens, they have never had a covered run. They have been in with our goats in open yards with standard 2" x 4" fencing over split rail fencing and we have had no losses to this point. We do lock them up at night.

I have been told that our goats keep the predators away. I don't know if this is true or not, however, I am not able to keep goats any longer and our last goat is now 16 1/2 years old so she won't be around much longer and once she passes I think it will be open season on our chickens, hence the new enclosed and covered run.

So what do I do? Bite the bullet and spend the money for the 16 gage or will the cheaper 19 gage be sufficient? It is going to cost $580 to buy the 16 gage and $240 to buy the 19 gage. I am really torn. Thanks for any sage advice you may offer.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Hi.

Vinyl coated is nice.. But I have to go with the Hubs on this one.

I have spent tons on 1/4 and 1/2 inch hardware cloth. They don't rust and I live in the PNW, so I'm not sure what the point of vinyl coated is.

It's not truly effective IMHO against a dog who might have time to sit there and chew/work the fence. But it works great for things like weasels and raccoon. Maybe the goats helped keep predators away, but they ARE prey animals themselves. A dog or a mountain lion would go after them just as easily. As far as hawks and such, I kind of doubt that the goats is what did it... but who knows!

If your own house/car is paid off and you got no $ worries, go with the vinyl coated and be happy. If you still have bills to pay, go with more affordable and put the rest to paying down your debt. It will still out last your flock most likely, protect just as well from predators.. and you can STILL feel good with the bonus of making Hubby feel better about the decision as well. Oh boy, all the $ spent on different things... my eggs probably cost several dollars each!

 

[Wise Woman]

Thank you for your reply! I appreciate your advice. Yes our home and car are paid off, but it is also very old and we are about to embark on a remodeling project. Fun things like a new roof, new wiring so we don't have another fire, stuff like that, so we don't have money to burn.

The good news is that I have $600 squirreled away from holding yard sales the past several years. I can either buy the 16 gage hardware cloth or the 19 gage and a couple of Grandpa's feeders which I have been coveting for years. I think they would be great in my rodent control program! LOL!!!

I don't know about the goat thing either, but I do know we have had no problems low these many years. I am so glad to hear the 19 gage does not rust as that was one of my concerns. The other is just that the strength of the 16 gage is higher than the 19. But our yard is surrounded on 3 sides by a 6 ft block wall and my husband is almost done closing off the front with fencing so, there shouldn't be loose dogs in our yard.

However, we do have a huge raccoon population and they worry me more than dogs. In fact, we had one attack our poor dog last year while he was sitting on the deck. The vet said it is a good job he is a pug because the raccoon bit him in the neck. He has so much extra skin there that it didn't do any internal damage. Had he been a normal dog, the bite in the neck could have been fatal. Those little masked devils.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Rodent control is sooo important! I cannot believe I saw threads where rats actually eat chickens alive.

Congrats on having your stuff paid off! It's not easy to do.

so the 19 gauge is probably the standard for the 1/2 in wire. I know when I first bought it I thought "oh 1/4 in is even harder to reach through"... before I realized it was also smaller diameter wire. Then I was like oh no that might be easier to chew through. Though they have to chew through more of them to make a hole. I haven't had issues with either.

Since I'm an over thinker though... the bigger gauge wire that is coated, is probably counting the coating and therefor only more plastic on the same gauge wire underneath? Thinking the plastic won't actually add strength despite it's supposed larger gauge. (ya I understand that gauge talk is weird and smaller # equals bigger wire, just like shotguns smaller number equals a wider barrel).

Raccoon are crafty buggers indeed. I had a duck scalped a month or so ago (in temporary housing). Thankfully she survived. And showed me that though I have never seen a raccoon near my property they are here and don't let my guard down! So glad your dog was OK.

 

[Rustyspokes]

Just rebuilt a few 32 year old runs, and decided to use 1" x 1" hex for sides and tops instead of 2" hex this time merely to keep the wild birds out. Same as last time after it has weathered several months I'll use roller to apply exterior latex paint to extend the lifespan.

With ground predators the lower bottom of the runs is key - To save $$ I reused the old 26" x 8' galvanized correlated steel panels, rip cut the horizontal length to remove the rusted edges with an angle grinder, and ended up with about 15 inches of good material exposed with the remaining width (4-5 ") buried to keep the 4 legged predators at bay. Originally I had buried them a bit deeper but surprisingly nothing had never even so much as attempted to dig under them.

I had used the same material to panel the coops so just gave them a new coat of paint. With window openings kept high and pop holes closed nights nothing can scale it or enter in.

Bald eagles, osprey, horned owl, coyotes, foxes, raccoon, and opossum are regular visitors but the pens have never been compromised. Knock on wood in all these years I've never lost a bird to a predator.

ps: Use the cleated type of wire staples (Tractor Supply sells them) as the older smooth type tend to back out of the wood over the years.

 

[Wise Woman]

Rustyspokes, that is a great idea to paint the hardware cloth. I do like the look of the vinyl because the dark color makes it seem to disappear into the background while the regular hardware cloth stands out like a sore thumb. I could definitely paint it come spring! I too was thinking about putting the corregated metal panels along the bottom but we will have to see about that. This coop is already way over budget, but we are getting old and don't want to have to re-do it in a few years.

EggSighted4Life, thank you. We have just turned 60 so it is about time we have accomplished something. The trick now will be to pay off all the repairs we have to do prior to retiring. This will be difficult as I am now disabled and can no longer work. I had planned to work until I was at least 70 or maybe 75 if I felt like it, so that has put a major set back in our remodeling/retiring scenario.

Your poor little duck. I am glad she is ok. How scary for her. My dog is afraid to go outside now unless my husband or myself are stranding right beside him every minute. Those raccoons are such devils. Their cute faces are deceiving. We grossly underestimated their boldness and lack of fear. I live in a mountain area and you would not believe how many part timers or tourists think they are sooo cute and actually feed them. Oh my gosh. It makes me crazy.

 

[CapricornFarm]

Hex wire is the same as chicken wire, yes? The predator thread is full of instances of that stuff being ripped open and mass murder of chickens. The only time i use that is if i am covering it with welded wire, fyi.

 

[Rustyspokes]

CapricornFarm, I'm aware that it is the same material and no doubt something can tear into it. I can only attest to my own experiences. The runs are empty at night.

 

[CapricornFarm]

of hardware cloth? I am ready to order the hardware cloth for our new run. I want to get the best I can so I decided on 16 gage 1/2" x 1/2" vinyl coated hardware cloth. A 4' by 100' roll is $290 on amazon and that is the cheapest I can find it, as I am a Prime member so there will be no shipping costs. I did find it cheaper elsewhere, but the shipping was more than the hardware cloth so that is out.

Holy chicken predators batman. When I told my husband the price, he almost fell over. I can get 1/2" by 1/2" 19 gage hardware cloth, also 4' by 100', locally for $119 a roll.

My practical side is saying go with the 19 gage but my do it right the first time side wants the 16 gage. My husband says I am getting carried away. Am I? In all the years we have been keeping chickens, they have never had a covered run. They have been in with our goats in open yards with standard 2" x 4" fencing over split rail fencing and we have had no losses to this point. We do lock them up at night.

I have been told that our goats keep the predators away. I don't know if this is true or not, however, I am not able to keep goats any longer and our last goat is now 16 1/2 years old so she won't be around much longer and once she passes I think it will be open season on our chickens, hence the new enclosed and covered run.

So what do I do? Bite the bullet and spend the money for the 16 gage or will the cheaper 19 gage be sufficient? It is going to cost $580 to buy the 16 gage and $240 to buy the 19 gage. I am really torn. Thanks for any sage advice you may offer.

Maybe you are using too much hardware cloth. I am using welded wire for the tops of my runs. The runs are chain link and i use hardware cloth as a buried skirt on the outside and a foot up the side to protect the chickens in case a coon tries to reach in. The chicken yard around the coop and runs is fenced in 4 feet high and i am going to put my solar charger to work as soon as the garden dies off. The chickens and guineas are locked in the coop at night. I suppose we could lose chickens to something small like a mink , but we have seen bears so i worry more about that.

 

[Duckworth]

I used 1/4" hardware cloth for the bottom 36" and uncoated 1/2" HW cloth for the upper sides of my run. Because dogs could eventually tear through the 1/4" HWC, I put a layer of 24" welded wire rabbit fencing over the bottom two feet to make the tearing process much more difficult. The rabbit fencing is relatively cheap and gave the extra strength I was looking for to supplement the smaller gage HWC. My HWC is on the outside of 2x4 studs. If I wanted more separation for my birds from the outside mesh, I can put 24" chicken wire around the inside of the studs to keep my birds from being within easy reach of anything that managed to breach my HWC. I would put the Chicken wire up a couple of inches from the bottom footer, though, so that any debris that got between the layers of wire could be blown or swept out. I put part of my welded wire about two inches out from th HWC because it seems to signal my dogs that the birds are out of reach and should not be bothered.