I think predator proofing is relative really there are many factors namely your area and prospective predators, how much money you can spend, materials at hand already, and how big a deal it is to actually lose a chicken. If you are raising pet chickens and only have 6 and you can't bear the thought of one dying then you should probably go all hardware cloth completely sealed, this often is more realistic with a small coop run than surrounding a large semi free range area with hardware cloth.
I run a larger amount of chickens around 50 if I lost an occasional one it's not a huge deal, I chose to use materials at hand which was dog kennel and protect against the larger predators. My coop is solid and nothing will get in it has a steel plate for a pop door though as of the last couple months I haven't even been closing it at night, and I do have weasels around the area along with any number of other predators but my only losses have been to raptors while ranging.
With larger numbers of birds and a larger area to contain or range making a weasel proof area gets pretty costly
I run a larger amount of chickens around 50 if I lost an occasional one it's not a huge deal, I chose to use materials at hand which was dog kennel and protect against the larger predators. My coop is solid and nothing will get in it has a steel plate for a pop door though as of the last couple months I haven't even been closing it at night, and I do have weasels around the area along with any number of other predators but my only losses have been to raptors while ranging.
With larger numbers of birds and a larger area to contain or range making a weasel proof area gets pretty costly
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