How to deter foxes?

[bobbi-j]

Sorry to hear about your lose...

Yes, foxes can climb very well, grey foxes hang out in trees regularly, so can raccoons and possums, bobcats and several other predators... While coyotes and bobcats can clear jump a 6 foot fence without the need to climb... The short of it is that a 6 foot fence it ineffective on it's own, you need a wire roof or solid roof to prevent climbers and jumpers from gaining entry...

And this goes for electric fences as well, as I said a coyote can clear jump a 6 foot fence, so even if electrified they can simply jump right over it, while smaller digging predators many times can dig under or simply go through the fence getting around the electrification, thus the reason 1/2" hardware cloth, buried and skirted is recommend....

Agreed - I have welded wire on the top of my runs. If the Premiere electric netting is too expensive, you can run a few strands of electric fence wire around your coop and run, starting a couple of inches off the ground, and then one every 6 or so inches up. I have 2x4" welded wire around my run, with 24" high hardware cloth around the bottom to keep chicks in and other animals from reaching in and snagging them from the outside.






How our run is constructed, and how we hold the wire up so it doesn't collapse under the weight of snow.

 

[MeepBeep]

Why would you need hardware cloth if your using electric? The coop openings need hardware cloth for weasels. The bottom wire of electric needs to be low enough to shock diggers like skunk and fox. If a hot wire is low enough no dig apron is needed.

Because without the hardware cloth you would be 100% reliant on the electric wire to prevent entry and electric is simply not fool proof, IMO some people lean way too much on electric and believe it's a one stop fix... If you have a strand say 1" off the ground to stop a weasel, even a day or two worth of vegetation growth could short it out, and during a dry spell or depending on your soil type with a single lower strand you might not have proper grounding, especially for very light animals like weasels that are not making much ground contact in the first place... And a two wire system that close to the ground is tricky as well, since it would require an animal to touch both, if they are going under the lower strand and not touching the 2nd upper strand it fails...

I'm a firm believer in not depending on any single predator deterrent as an end all...

 

[DuckGirl77]

Why would you need hardware cloth if your using electric? The coop openings need hardware cloth for weasels. The bottom wire of electric needs to be low enough to shock diggers like skunk and fox. If a hot wire is low enough no dig apron is needed. Since you have a 6 ft welded wire fence already put a wire no more than 6 inches from bottom for the dig proof and a wire standing off the top. To really ensure a bounding, climbing fox doesn't some how miss the top wire put another wire middle of fence. There are also gate handles for $2 each. The wire ties to one end and other clips to your end point. I used large nails in wood corner post on apiary. The handle has spring so it stays taught when clipped, can be easily removed from hook point for entry. I use all these things with 1 joule charger on our apiary for bear.

Plastic insulated stand offs are about $7 for a bag of 25 and poywire is about $18 for a 600 ft roll. If your run is near an outlet you can get a plug in 0.5 Joule fencer for around $70. All these things are available at TSC. For ground rod just use a 3 ft length of copper water pipe or rebar or whatever you have that's long, metal and able to be hammered into the ground. You can get less powerful chargers but do research to ensure you will put out 4K Volts using them. 0.5 Joule will deliver 6K volt peak so with a few grounding points you'll still be above 4K volts. Branches and grass need to be cut away from the electric as they will ground out the fence. As grass grows the low wire will start grounding out taking the 6K peak down. The more grounding points the less output voltage. Using a 0.5 Joule gives plenty of time to mow your lawn or tend to grounding issues. It takes a lot of contact to get it below 4K where electric will not deter determined animals.

I will definitely look into that. Where do they sell electric fencing (just the regular single strand)? TSC? Thank you.

Agreed - I have welded wire on the top of my runs. If the Premiere electric netting is too expensive, you can run a few strands of electric fence wire around your coop and run, starting a couple of inches off the ground, and then one every 6 or so inches up. I have 2x4" welded wire around my run, with 24" high hardware cloth around the bottom to keep chicks in and other animals from reaching in and snagging them from the outside.






How our run is constructed, and how we hold the wire up so it doesn't collapse under the weight of snow.

Thank you very much for the pictures! I think I'm going to do the same thing with my fence because I have plenty of welded wire, and, yeah, we get lots of snow here, too, so it won't fall that way. It will also keep any chickens that will fly well in.

Because without the hardware cloth you would be 100% reliant on the electric wire to prevent entry and electric is simply not fool proof, IMO some people lean way too much on electric and believe it's a one stop fix... If you have a strand say 1" off the ground to stop a weasel, even a day or two worth of vegetation growth could short it out, and during a dry spell or depending on your soil type with a single lower strand you might not have proper grounding, especially for very light animals like weasels that are not making much ground contact in the first place... And a two wire system that close to the ground is tricky as well, since it would require an animal to touch both, if they are going under the lower strand and not touching the 2nd upper strand it fails...

I'm a firm believer in not depending on any single predator deterrent as an end all...

I believe also, after this experience, that a fence can't be too secure, so I need to have more than one thing to deter predators. How high up would the hardware cloth need to be?

 

[Egghead_Jr]

You don't stop weasels getting into a run. That's an extremely expensive proposition to try and do and likely will fail at it anyway. You'd never put electric one inch from ground. 4 inches is about as low as you'd want to go and will stop all other short critters. The gig with electric on runs is it's actually the cheaper way to go and obviously far more effective than a tall fence. If your going to put a apron and hardware cloth around the run you don't need electric at all. Clearly you've enough cash to hardware cloth the entire top of run too. We rely on electric as it's been proven to be the best deterrent for the buck on large runs. There is no better protection from weasels or any possible nighttime run breach than hardware cloth on coop openings and the door locked at night, every night. I've not lost one bird since moving to electric. Right now and for rest of summer/fall the layers run is 164' of electric poultry netting. That's it.

I mean gosh, there is no way I can stop weasels. We have them in spades here. I'd left an egg on top of the grow out coop the other night and in morning the top was opened and all contents eaten. As there is welded wire around the grow out pen the only animal that could have gotten in to do that was a weasel or rat. I don't have that many rats as we use chunx poison 24/7 in the run. Quite sure it was a weasel that climbed to top of the grow out coop in a welded wire run with a broody and her young and 6 young cockerels in it. They have a door that's closed at night and hardware cloth over the vent openings. Safe and sound.

Let me see if I've a photo to show just how big of a run that is...





Nope, guess not. Well, think over 40 X 40 feet that is portable to keep moving to new forage and around trees and bushes. Do love this netting but cheaper option is polywire on fixed run.

Here's my bee bunker to deter bear- was tested the first night and held up. Now has a bathroom door on it that says "Thank you for not smoking". Four strands of poly wire with plastic stand offs and three gate handles.





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[DuckGirl77]

You don't stop weasels getting into a run. That's an extremely expensive proposition to try and do and likely will fail at it anyway. You'd never put electric one inch from ground. 4 inches is about as low as you'd want to go and will stop all other short critters. The gig with electric on runs is it's actually the cheaper way to go and obviously far more effective than a tall fence. If your going to put a apron and hardware cloth around the run you don't need electric at all. Clearly you've enough cash to hardware cloth the entire top of run too. We rely on electric as it's been proven to be the best deterrent for the buck on large runs. There is no better protection from weasels or any possible nighttime run breach than hardware cloth on coop openings and the door locked at night, every night. I've not lost one bird since moving to electric. Right now and for rest of summer/fall the layers run is 164' of electric poultry netting. That's it.

I mean gosh, there is no way I can stop weasels. We have them in spades here. I'd left an egg on top of the grow out coop the other night and in morning the top was opened and all contents eaten. As there is welded wire around the grow out pen the only animal that could have gotten in to do that was a weasel or rat. I don't have that many rats as we use chunx poison 24/7 in the run. Quite sure it was a weasel that climbed to top of the grow out coop in a welded wire run with a broody and her young and 6 young cockerels in it. They have a door that's closed at night and hardware cloth over the vent openings. Safe and sound.

Oh, yeah, I forgot that hardware cloth is somewhat expensive ...

I thought electric fencing was expensive, but I guess not.
So, what do you guys think of this plan? I will lock the chickens up at five or six o'clock at night so a coon or a weasel doesn't get them. I will cover the run with welded wire and put a strand of electric wire about 6 in. off the ground. Sound good?

 

[bobbi-j]

Oh, yeah, I forgot that hardware cloth is somewhat expensive ...

I thought electric fencing was expensive, but I guess not.
So, what do you guys think of this plan? I will lock the chickens up at five or six o'clock at night so a coon or a weasel doesn't get them. I will cover the run with welded wire and put a strand of electric wire about 6 in. off the ground. Sound good?

I'd put several strands of electric wire. That way, if a coon or fox chooses to try to climb up there will be more for them to run into. They can easily reach over 6" to start climbing.

 

[DuckGirl77]

I'd put several strands of electric wire. That way, if a coon or fox chooses to try to climb up there will be more for them to run into. They can easily reach over 6" to start climbing.

Oh, OK, thank you. Hadn't thought of that.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

With that plan you'd only be covering the run to stop hawks. They don't require welded wire, simple netting works. We keep young birds in a small covered pen until 12 weeks of age then they go to the layer open netting run. I do expect losses from hawk but that's a risk willing to take. So far so good as there is always plenty of cover for birds to duck under, wait for birds to be larger before in open air run and we've plenty of fields here. All last summer there was hawk on the power line not 300 yards from where birds were kept. They do prefer meadow voles and mice to larger prey they can get injured taking. Even with all that I fully expect to lose a bird now and then to hawk. Just hasn't happened yet.

 

[DuckGirl77]

With that plan you'd only be covering the run to stop hawks. They don't require welded wire, simple netting works. We keep young birds in a small covered pen until 12 weeks of age then they go to the layer open netting run. I do expect losses from hawk but that's a risk willing to take. So far so good as there is always plenty of cover for birds to duck under, wait for birds to be larger before in open air run and we've plenty of fields here. All last summer there was hawk on the power line not 300 yards from where birds were kept. They do prefer meadow voles and mice to larger prey they can get injured taking. Even with all that I fully expect to lose a bird now and then to hawk. Just hasn't happened yet.

Alright, well, I think I'll put some up, even if it will only stop hawks. I am looking at electric on TSC, too, though; but will it be okay in the winter? I was surprised; it's surprisingly inexpensive!

 

[Egghead_Jr]

If your ground is frozen in winter just disconnect the low wire that will get covered in snow anyway and ground out. Diggers can't go through icy ground so that wire is not needed in winter. The wire is easy to connect. By wrapping around another wire and tying it you've effectively added another wire. Untie it and leave in place until the snow melts then retie. You can use clips and all sorts of things too. I just use it off the roll in one length starting at top go around then come down to next level going around and down and so on. For a gate left opening then tied the strands that would make the gate after with short lengths. For winter you'd have a tied or clipped on connection for the low wire. Just keep winter and gate in mind when installing. I put the electric on the bee bunker from nailing stand offs to pounding in the ground rod and connecting took less than an hour to install. When I say it was tested I mean a bear came and tried to reach in to hives by pulling the welded wire off. Well that pulled it out enough to make contact with the poly wire and shock the bear that was standing on old tin roofing. Worked like a charm! Have the top wire so it can't stand up and push the entire thing over.