Husband is on board!

[The Kibble Goddess]

Guess what y'all? Sunday was discussing the impending arrival of dog run and refurb of the 'cat house' (the only one that ever used the monster dog house was the cat!) for my temporary coop and run. And DH, who wanted no part of this venture, offered to fence in the side yard as a chicken yard! I am so excited. He can't start till January, so I'll have plenty of time to 'test drive' my chicken keeping venture. We're looking at a 12' x 12' enclosure, though we could go longer on one dimension. The fence would be a good, stout, wooden privacy fence, about 6' tall.

Then when I was talking about building my coop, he said, "I may be looking for a project after I finish the fence." Nothing more than that, but that's a start !

Question: will I need to have some netting or wire over the top of this enclosure? It is right up against the house w/ about a two foot overhang of the eves. No doors or windows on that side of the house. The coop I'm looking to build would be in the Northeast corner of the yard. We do have racoons and possums, but if the hens are cooped at night, could they still be a problem? We do have hawks in the area, but I've not seen them hunt our yard as it's pretty heavily planted with tall shrubs.

 

[bigoakhunter]

I too am fairly new to this site. But I raised chickens for 5 years back in the 1990's. I had a run with no wire on top, 5 foot tall. tarted slowly losing chickens. Went out one evening to close up and make sure they were getting inot coop. Low and behold a hawk was in run and had one of the chickens.

So espesially if no windows on that side with no windows, my 2 cents says it needs wire on top! I am building a run and will use 1x2 wire on top and on upper half of sides and 1/2 x 1/2 hardware cloth on the bottom of run. Also attached and a foot or so out with hardare cloth to keep varmits from digging under.

 

[teach1rusl]

There's nothing better than a husband looking for a project...at least not when you're wanting chickens!!

I do agree with the previous post...you haven't really had problems with pests because you haven't had good bait out there yet. Between the chickens and their feed, there will be appeal for raccons, possums, and hawks or owls if you have them in the area. I would cover the run. I think taking extra precautions is worth it, so you don't have to think about when you're not at home to monitor.

Good luck and have fun!