Need to bury wire under run floor

[mola_mil]

Coons just got two of our 'baby girls' - our Brahma and one of our Polish Bantams. :-(

They accessed our run from the top, where we just had bird netting, which they opened up easily. We're going to redesign our run and make it as secure as possible- including replacing the bird netting with metal. But I've read here that we should buy hardware cloth or similar under run or access to it so that coons can't dig into run. But where we live the dirt is very hard clay that we have a very hard time digging up. Do you all still think it's necessary to bury that wire in this kind of soil?

Will appreciate any help you can offer!

 

[GardenGal]

Oh, I'm so sorry you lost your girls to coons. We have hard clay around our run and what we did was spread hardware cloth out 12" or so and poured some crushed rock on top. We have coyotes and raccoons all over, and haven't had any break ins. Again, so sorry for your loss.

 

[mola_mil]

Thanks for this suggestion. Question- do your birds dig into those rocks when on the outside of the run? Our intention is to secure the run for early morning and evening time before they go in the coop, but during the day we want to let them free range in our yard, where they will have access to that area around run. From our experience so far, it seems like wherever we have rocks (even some really big ones!), our girls like to dig them up. How about yours?

 

[GardenGal]

Sorry to be late getting back to you! Our rocks are more like crushed rock, roughly 1" x 3", and they're an absolute pain to dig up. The chickens don't even bother.

BTW, I had a coon nearly get our chickens in the middle of the day when I was outside with them. All that stuff about predators being dusk and dawn animals...well, I think they meant from dusk TO dawn. Best wishes with your flock