How tall of fence?

[niroha]

Hi all! I do not have chickens yet, but am trying to pull together plans now so we can get moving come spring. I live rural and plan on having a large coop with a large fenced free range area for them because of my dogs. I was wondering how high I should have the fence to keep the chickens in? I plan on raising orpingtons and was hoping a 4 ft fence would keep their fat butts in. I am not worried about my dogs scaling the fence. They respect anything above 3'

 

[Folly's place]

Most predators will laugh as they get over your 3' or 4' fencing unless you get the electrified poultry fence, which is what I would recommend for a larger area. I have a very secure coop and a fairly secure covered run for days when my flock can't free range, and my dogs are in very secure separate fencing with electric backup. When you have chickens, you will have predators; try to start with a better set-up than most of us did, and have more fun and fewer disasters. Mary

 

[cafarmgirl]

Hi all! I do not have chickens yet, but am trying to pull together plans now so we can get moving come spring. I live rural and plan on having a large coop with a large fenced free range area for them because of my dogs. I was wondering how high I should have the fence to keep the chickens in? I plan on raising orpingtons and was hoping a 4 ft fence would keep their fat butts in. I am not worried about my dogs scaling the fence. They respect anything above 3'

My chickens have access to about 3/4 acre of pasture along with my goats. This is fenced with 48" field wire with 4" square holes. I have a hot wire around the outside about 8 inches off the ground which does a great job of deterring roaming dogs that get curious. My chickens have never attempted to get over this fence and I have never lost one to a predator but I also do not have a problem with daytime predators due to the level of human activity in the area during the day. Nighttime is a different story and they are locked in a secure coop at night of course.

 

[niroha]

I'm not sure if this would matter with the predator vs electric fence part but the while backyard space has a 6 foot fence. The chicken space will be a fence within a fence, I guess.

 

[biteme2134]

Here is what I did - I have a covered portion of the run (back side of the picture) and an open area. The open area is just about 6 feet tall. I have hardware cloth ran in 3 strips all the way around. I have had a chicken get out but I believe it was from the ramp and up over the top of the fence above the coop (will be fixed soon). I drove in T posts into the ground and wired them to 4x4 posts that are laid on the ground - We have quite a bit of activity out back so we dont have many problems either so if you're going for an open top this might work. The T posts are super strong once in the ground.

 

[307151]

I'm new to chickens too and my chicken book said 6 feet since they CAN fly unless you clip their wings, but you have to be sure predators can't get in to or dig under. You can train your dogs not to harm the chickens. I have chicks and when I first brought them home, my dog was trying to nip at them. Now he's pretty gentle, but he tries to nibble at them for some off reason, haha.

 

[ksandvig]

I am also new to raising chickens and we just finished our run. We did a 12'x17' run w/ 6' tall poultry netting the 1" holes we also did the roof in netting and put a tarp over that. I have 2 dogs that I think would like to get my chickens but they can't get in and we ran the wire down on the ground for predators. good uck I've only had mine 3 days and absolutely love them!!

 

[biteme2134]

I am also new to raising chickens and we just finished our run. We did a 12'x17' run w/ 6' tall poultry netting the 1" holes we also did the roof in netting and put a tarp over that. I have 2 dogs that I think would like to get my chickens but they can't get in and we ran the wire down on the ground for predators. good uck I've only had mine 3 days and absolutely love them!!

Looks good! My only concern (and i'm sure a lot of people would tell you on here) is that the poultry netting may not hold up to an attack if something wants inside. I had it for probably a year with no issues then finally upgraded to hardware cloth. The difference is like trying to break cardboard as opposed to wood. Your dogs will probably keep the bigger animals away but I've heard things like raccoons and opossums can chew right through the weaker wire if they really want in. Just an FYI - I lost a rooster to a coyote (while free ranging) so after that incident I started beefing everything up on my coop in case they have to go into lock down Otherwise it looks good! they've got tons of room!

 

[ksandvig]

Thnx for heads up biteme I will see how this does like I said above the back part is double wired and has lattice on top. I am hoping my dogs keep racoons ect out if yard period we have a fenced acre and the dogs have always ran predators away but my old dog is now deaf and partially blind

 

[biteme2134]

You're welcome. I just know how sad I'd be if something made it inside our coop. We have an acre surrounded by woods. I just left our house and there was a deer someone must have hit not 10 yards from our mailbox so we definitely have animals all around us and no dogs ;-) we made it fine for over a year with just the basic chicken wire. It was just after the coyote struck they kept showing up at night in our back tree line. I had to keep the girls locked up for a good 2 weeks until the coast was clear. That just changed my whole game plan is all. All you need a a loud neighbor and some dogs haha