Hi, I'm new to keeping chickens. I'm moving to a place where I can do this. My neighbor is up the hill said his flock slowly disappeared from hawk predation. My land has a pine tree canopy.. If I want to put a roof on my chicken run, could I use the fine plastic mesh that people use to cover their trees and grapes? Do hawks concentrate so intensely that they would only see their target, and miss seeing the mesh? I can't afford wire mesh. I realize that two-inch poultry mesh would work great, and 2X4 welded wire mesh would, too. Thank You, Roger
We had our run constructed with a roof made of polycarbonate clear plastic- It is clear so the light can still get in, but covered to protect from predators, and I LOVE the fact that my birds can still go out while it's raining and have a nice covered, dry area to scratch around.
I don't think the hawks will mess with the netting. My neighbor has netting over theirs, so far so good. The problem I see is with 4-legged predators such as raccoons, opossums, etc. The netting won't stop them.
Welcome! Netting over the run will keep hawks out, but not other predators. You will need to be rigid about locking the flock inside a safe coop every night, as we did here for many years. This summer we finally roofed the run area and upgraded it to predator proof, so they can be out then. I used 2" chicken wire over my run for years to keep hawks out. Mary
Hawks are some serious business where I live. They got the neighbor's male duck (he was alive, but suffered such severe injuries he had to be put down), and once they realized there was a "food source" they attempted to get to my chickens. I ran wire across the top, and then went back and added more for reinforcement (I had ran out so had to get more to make gaps smaller) immediately after the attempt at my chickens. So far, it's worked. I've read about using fishing line, thick and tinted, but I had already ran wire so I just stuck with what I had going on. I already had a bunch of wire to get things started though so it didn't cost anything until I ran out.
