I am purchasing a metal kennel to put over my coop but it’s manufactured with chicken wire. Should I put hardware cloth on the bottom 2 feet or should I cover the whole thing is hardware cloth?
Let me offer a differing opinion on this subject. I think most of us are challenged with the cost of making a chicken coop and run "predator proof" and what we can actually afford to do.
Chicken wire is inexpensive, but certainly won't stop a raccoon or many other predators. Hardware cloth is much better in that respect, but one can go bankrupt covering an entire chicken run with expensive hardware cloth.
Another factor I considered was that I was trying to protect a handful of $3.00 chickens that give me about 50 cents worth of eggs every day. How much money would I put into my setup to make everything "predator proof?" I mean, for me, that was a real consideration.
I don't think your idea of covering the bottom 2 feet with hardware cloth will do much of anything to help you make your run "predator proof." Most predators you would probably encounter can climb, then the chicken wire would not stop them at all.
So, let me tell you my solution that has worked for me. I decided that I could not afford to make both my chicken coop and run "predator proof." But I thought about it and decided that I probably only needed a "predator resistant" chicken run for the daytime - enough to keep out, or at least slow down - any dog that might wander through my yard during the daytime. So, my run has 2X4 welded wire fencing, which is better than chicken wire, but much less expensive than hardware cloth. In the 4+ years I have used that 2X4 fencing, it has stopped stray dogs from getting at the chickens. That's about all I could hope for.
The real daytime predators I worry about are Bald Eagles and hawks. I live on a lake, and we have eagles and hawks overhead all the time. I have bird netting stretched across the top of my chicken run fencing and that has prevented any aerial attacks. Bird netting is cheap. I bought my netting locally at our Fleet store, but
Amazon has a much bigger selection of sizes of bird netting.
Next, I considered most of my predator attacks from wild animals would probably come at night. My chicken run fencing is not going to stop raccoons, for example. My solution was to build a Fort Knox chicken coop and lock up my hens every night. It is much cheaper to make a chicken coop "predator proof" then trying to make the chicken run "predator proof." My money was better spent in making the coop predator proof and locking the hens up every night.
Well, that's what I could afford for my backyard flock and it has worked for me. I have not had any attack in 4+ years. A few stray dogs came around the chickens over the years but the 2X4 fence stopped them.
If you have an unlimited budget for your backyard flock, then go ahead and cover everything with hardware cloth. I'm all for keeping my chickens as safe as possible - but within my budget. I could not afford to cover my 13X30 foot chicken run in hardware cloth. But my "predator resistant" run with a Fort Knox "predator proof" coop has proved to be good enough for my location.
