How deep to bury hardware cloth in a run?

[EmmaDonovan]

How deep should we bury hardware cloth so that the chickens don't dig down to it?

 

[perkolator]

Ideally you wouldn't have mesh under the floor of a run if you don't truly need it. Depending on the type of soil or bedding, the angle of repose usually limits a chicken to dig maybe ~8" deep, but of course it's possible to dig deeper. Aiming for 8-12" is probably a good depth to prevent the average chicken digging into it.

Many people will just say no, but I went against everyone's suggestions and installed HC under my coop structure's floor. This was because old coop was plagued with mole tunnels and rodents using them to get in/out. It was a lot of work to install, but for me worth it because no animal has been able to dig into the coop, and I've definitely seen mole activity all around the coop and even had one try to dig in before I filled in over the HC when I installed it. Mine's buried under about 6" of soil, and then there's lots of arborist wood chips, shavings, leaves, grass clippings, and other organic "deep and dry bedding" materials on top. I'd approximate my original depth was around 8-12" deep; haven't noticed any chickens digging down into mine, but they also have a larger run where they can dig all they want.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

 

[EmmaDonovan]

Ideally you wouldn't have mesh under the floor of a run if you don't truly need it. Depending on the type of soil or bedding, the angle of repose usually limits a chicken to dig maybe ~8" deep, but of course it's possible to dig deeper. Aiming for 8-12" is probably a good depth to prevent the average chicken digging into it.

Many people will just say no, but I went against everyone's suggestions and installed HC under my coop structure's floor. This was because old coop was plagued with mole tunnels and rodents using them to get in/out. It was a lot of work to install, but for me worth it because no animal has been able to dig into the coop, and I've definitely seen mole activity all around the coop and even had one try to dig in before I filled in over the HC when I installed it. Mine's buried under about 6" of soil, and then there's lots of arborist wood chips, shavings, leaves, grass clippings, and other organic "deep and dry bedding" materials on top. I'd approximate my original depth was around 8-12" deep; haven't noticed any chickens digging down into mine, but they also have a larger run where they can dig all they want.

Hope this helps. Good luck!

What did you use to dig out all that soil?

 

[Birdinhand]

I dug out the floor, added hardware cloth across the whole thing, used heavy duty zip ties to mend the seams added deepnlitter back and that completely eliminated the rat problem. I dug down two feed with a perimeter of hardware cloth all the way around, at the suggest 45 degree angle and still the rats found a way and after about 5 years it rusted out where it was exposed beyond the eve to rain. If you can keep the dirt relatively dry the hardware cloth will last a lot longer.

 

[EmmaDonovan]

I dug out the floor, added hardware cloth across the whole thing, used heavy duty zip ties to mend the seams added deepnlitter back and that completely eliminated the rat problem. I dug down two feed with a perimeter of hardware cloth all the way around, at the suggest 45 degree angle and still the rats found a way and after about 5 years it rusted out where it was exposed beyond the eve to rain. If you can keep the dirt relatively dry the hardware cloth will last a lot longer.

We're in the desert so it'll be dry most of the time. What did you use to dig out the floor?

 

[Birdinhand]

We're in the desert so it'll be dry most of the time. What did you use to dig out the floor?

I used a shovel. If the roof is low, it has to be a short handled shovel. Depending on headroom, you might now have to dig down if you have room to put about 6-8” of deep litter over the hardware cloth… which back on the farm we called “rat wire”, it might as well be called chicken wire, the stuff sold as chicken wire has no business being used on exterior wall of a coop imho.

 

[EmmaDonovan]

I used a shovel.

That's impressive! And beyond my abilities. We're trying to figure out how to hire someone to dig it out for us.