Lost our first so I built this, thoughts?

[ValerieJ]

By crappy net, do you mean the standard bird net? And by heavy duty net do you mean poly netting?

The cheap stuff is what you can buy in Home Depot or Lowes. But, it's not really cheap, just cheaply made. I spent $100+ on that stuff for my run, then went to Amazon and got this stuff. In the end, I paid less for a better product.

 

[hayley3]

Lost our first to a hawk (1 of 16 at 12 weeks). They were out of the coop free ranging. We don't want to have to always be there or keep them in the coop (with a run). I built a PVC with bird netting mobile run and I think it's going to work... thoughts? View attachment 2000590

I think you did a great job. I'm sure they love getting out to peck at the grass. It is small...and bigger would be better but if they are just spending an hour in it...pecking at grass, I'm sure they wouldn't mind for that amount of time. Mine love the grass so much. You'd really need to watch and see if they are doing okay and not pecking at each other but mine are normally too busy pecking at the grass. Mine sort of stick together when they are out anyway.

 

[cmom]

This is what the crappy netting looked like when I got it except it was a 2" mesh. I ordered 3 nets that were 25' x 150' each. At the time I ordered it I didn't pay attention to the materials. I was looking to hopefully deter aerial predators.

The picture of the netting looked more like this in the original add except I ordered 25' x 150'.

My original good netting was 50' x200' which is an odd size I found on eBay over 10 years ago and it is still in good condition. When I had originally put the netting over the pens I had planted trees in all of the pens so they were fairly small and I put the netting over them but as they grew cut the netting around the trunk so the tree would end up growing above the netting. Since the first picture was taken we have added 2 more coops and pens. The original netting was 2" mesh over the blueberries and we replaced it with 1" mesh. I used the good netting from the blueberries and partially covered the new pens but was still short so bought the crappy netting. I learned. I was hasty. The larger tree I planted a few years earlier but as the years passed added more coops and pens and planted trees in the other pens. The netting is not neat but I did it by myself all the way across the pens. My fences are 5' tall.

This picture was taken 4 years ago. The trees do loose their leaves in the winter months and then I trim the branches around the bottom of the trees. When I trim the trees I have the netting cut around the bottoms and cut off the zip ties I use to hold the netting together around the trees and am able to move the netting so I can take the branches I trim and throw them over the fence then use the front end loader to pick up the branches and put them in a brush pile.

This is what my original netting looked like. I bought this to replace the crappy netting.

 

[2 many chickens]

Too many bodies smashed in that thing.

 

[50-45-1]

Hey, dont get discouraged.
i can see that a lot of work and thought went into the construction of that.
i also wonder what Netting is on it tho.
i can see it working for fewer chickens like 3 or 4, with a water container.
is it sturdy enough to deter a dog? would you be watching them the entire time?
you may want to think about just enlarging a run to your coop in case someone needs to lay an egg. that way they can get back to the nest boxes to do so.
its nice and lightweight for moving, i do like that feature, but you must think like a hungry determined predator. do you think it will hold up?