To Cover or Not to Cover...

[frizzleman74]

i had a 5 ft fence and learned the hard way that without a cover is not a good idea. A raccoon climbed over and killed all 11 of my 6 week old babies and my laying RIR and my favorite chicken, my frizzle bantam! Im in the process of covering it with corrugated roof panels right now for my next batch!

 

[nancypo]

I trimmed my girls flight feathers (lots of info here on how to do that, it's easy), because of a neighbors dogs. Works great for the over the fence problem. I would be really wary too, even with trees, of having a completely uncovered area. Can you put a covered area somewhere else?

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

It is nicely wooded giving lots of protection from hawks and I plan on about a 5' fence. Thoughts?

Cooper's Hawks hunt largely in woods as do owls.

But since you can't possibly cover it , that'a a moot point.

I'd run electric wire around the outside to stop the climbers, and hope for luck with flying predators​

 

[Life is Good!]

A local living history farm/museum has a 5' fence for their turkeys. They've taken scraps of the metal wire fencing about 16-24" wide and as long as the piece is (5'?) and bent it in half to hang over the top edge of the fence - it's balanced up there, but barely. So it hangs down each side of the top edge about a foot (here's a try at a graphic.....

X
/ l \\ bent over bit of scrap fencing
l fence

So the bent over bit hangs down each side about 12", but it's real loose and very unsteady, so any predator doesn't feel comfortable climbing over top.

Don't know if it'd help your situation (their out in a corn field, so different environment), but it's an idea.....

 

[bawkbawkbawk]

Cover cover cover!!!!

For one thing, covering the run gives them a nice umbrella when it rains so they don't have to be, um, cooped up.

Our pen is smaller than what you're proposing, but here's a photo: http://polloplayer.wordpress.com/?s=predator+proof&searchbutton=Go%21

My DH later put some plastic - that kind of wavy stuff - there's a post somewhere on my blog about it - over the top and it has been great - our rainy season was a doozie this year and it was nice for the girls to have the roof. The only downside is that twigs, acorns, etc. do land on the roof and it has to be cleared now and then.

And it feels VERY predator proof - also helps that DH put hardware cloth a foot down under the ground when building the pen. A friend of mine was just saying she went down six inches with the hardware cloth and she still gets rats tunneling beneath it. We've had no rats or predators of any kind. Knock on wood....