Predator proof

[gtaus]

[Attacks happened at] night. I hope you have good luck. Think of getting electric fence as good insurance.

Thanks. I am not the OP. That was @RuthhoneyEstherFrannymom. But my point is that I put my limited money into making a "predator proof" coop to lock the hens in at night, but my chicken run and fencing is only "predator resistant" for the daytime - which saved me a lot of money, I believe, over the past 4+ years.

I think an electric fence would be a good investment if I had predator attacks during the daytime hours. But that has never happened to me... yet.

 

[RuthhoneyEstherFrannymom]

Thanks. I am not the OP. That was @RuthhoneyEstherFrannymom. But my point is that I put my limited money into making a "predator proof" coop to lock the hens in at night, but my chicken run and fencing is only "predator resistant" for the daytime - which saved me a lot of money, I believe, over the past 4+ years.

I think an electric fence would be a good investment if I had predator attacks during the daytime hours. But that has never happened to me... yet.

Do you have a picture of your run?

 

[gtaus]

Do you have a picture of your run?

My chicken run is 13X30 feet, with 6-foot high 2X4 inch fencing. I converted my entire chicken run into a chicken run composting system. Here are a few pictures...

That's the 6-foot high 2X4 inch welded wire fencing attached to T-posts using zip ties.

Here is a picture of the run after I dumped in a load of grass clippings. The chickens will have that leveled out in no time...

And here is a picture last fall after I mowed up a bunch of leaves and dumped them into the chicken run...

The chickens love to scratch and peck in all that organic litter. It helps to break everything down into useable compost in maybe 3-4 months. All my old, soiled coop deep bedding litter gets tossed into the run as well twice a year. The last couple of years I have been using paper shreds as my coop litter. The paper shreds break down into compost really fast. Perhaps less than 2 months.

About twice a year, I harvest some of the chicken run compost and sift it in my cement mixer compost sifter...

I used to buy bags of compost at the big box store, but now I harvest and sift my own chicken run compost whenever I need it. A few years ago, I did the math on my compost sifting and I was able to sift out $60 worth of compost every hour at my leisurely old man pace. In less than 4 hours, my investment in that setup paid for itself. Since then, I have probably sifted another $1200.00 dollars worth of compost for my raised bed gardens.

I tell people I have composting chickens and get eggs as a bonus. Truely, I get more value out of the black gold compost than the eggs I collect. Since I started having a backyard flock and converting my run into a chicken run composting system, I have more than doubled my garden beds because I have a treasure of compost ready to use just for the taking.

More to your concerns about making the chicken run safer for the chickens, here is a picture of my backside 1/3 of the run where I let some wild trees grow for shade for the chickens...

You can see the bird netting stretched across the top of fence. I need that because I live on a lake, and we have Bald Eagles and hawks overhead all the time. If I did not have bird netting protecting the chickens from aerial attack, I would not have any chickens left by the end of the summer.

For the same reasons, I do not let my chickens free range. However, with all the compost litter in the run, my chickens are happy to scratch and peck all day in the compost looking for tasty bugs and juicy worms to eat.

I have had a few visiting dogs come by and check out the chickens during daylight hours, but none of them have attacked the fence. My chickens are smart enough to run back into the chicken coop if they are threatened. So, even if a dog was able to eventually breach the 2X4 welded wire fence, my chickens should have more than enough time to run inside the coop for safety.

In fact, I watched that play out one time. A dog came by the chicken run, all the chickens ran back into the chicken run, and the dog lost interest once the chickens were out of sight. After the dog left, the chickens slowly made their way back out into the chicken run. That is exactly what I was hoping for.