I have recently introduced my former coop-and-run chickens to a large fenced in area. They were doing nicely until I found one outside the enclosure. This has kept happening, and I have tried several attempts to solve it. I lowered the fence's lower clearance and clipped the chickens' wings. It has not helped. Two hens have already been lost to this. What can I do to stop them from escaping? The fence is completely holeless and is four feet tall (once again, the chickens are clipped.); its lower clearance ranges from one to two inches off the ground. Also, there are no large objects for them to launch off of inside the area besides the nine foot tall coop.
4 feet tall is kind of low for a chicken fence, many chickens with their wings clipped can still fly over a 6 foot tall fence! Clipping a chicken's wings isn't all that effective, try raising the fence height to 8 feet if you can. Otherwise I would suggest putting some netting on top of their run to prevent them from escaping.
Well if there is no way they can get under it than they must be going over it. Also check the gap where your gate is.
I hope you only clipped one wing. Four feet works for us although we had escapees when we first penned them up after free-ranging andd once in a long while it still happens. Mostly they have accepted it as home. I think if it were a smaller area and the grass looked better on the other side, we'd have a problem.
My run fence is only 4 feet, and they know its home and stay in for the most part. One side of the run is our neighbors chain link fence and I used some netting at an angle from the top of the fence in towards the run. Like a hockey stick, easy and cheep fix to keep them from going into the wrong yard if they do decide to explore. This has been very effective and was installed a bit too late for 2 of our hens. We clip our girls wings but still have one stubborn pullet that sleeps in a tree in the run well over my head. I have to use a ladder to get her down, and did everynight for about a month and have just given up on getting her to sleep in the coop. Meh.
Thanks so much for your input! As well as keeping the wings clipped, I have raised the fence to 7 1/2 feet. There have been no escapees.
