Is it over kill?

[Siggie]

I am in the process of designing and building my new coop. My coop will be attached to the side of the horse barn in a lean to fashion. It will be approx. 9'x10' with a 10' x 10' caged run. They will be left out to free range in the horse pasture in the afternoons when I am home. Soooooo.... my question is, is it over-kill to line the entire bottom of the coop and run with the 1/4" hardware mesh? I am just freaked out by these little weasels called least weasels which apparently can dig and fit through holes a 1/2" or larger? I never knew these weasels existed? Here I have been preparing for wolves, bear, Bob cats, Lynx, raccoons, possums, pine martins, etc....and then somebody tells me about these little weasels.

At this time we do not have a big large predator problem because we have 4 dogs and everything seems to stay away, but that doesn't mean once the tasty little chickens start roosting in their coop, we won't have night time visitors. The dogs AND the horses are good at alerting us when there is something creeping around at night, but....

I know I am rambling....so has anyone else lined their entire coop and run with the wire mesh?

 

[Cacique500]

Rather than line the whole bottom (which *may* be overkill, and might hurt the birds nails when they scratch...) why not "skirt" the perimeter? I went out about two feet all around my run and staked it down...with the other end stapled to the bottom of the run's 4x4's. The run is 10x20 for reference.



We had a rat problem while the whole thing was under construction...finally saw them one night getting in through a 3/4" hole at the top of the run (8 feet up) where it met the coop. After I plugged that (and checked for any other similiar openings) haven't had a problem since.

 

[fuzzy8]

I think you are on the right track. Just make sure to burry the hard wear cloth 6-12" bellow the ground to detur critters from digging. I did the same thing you did.