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My personal experience. i have top to keep out hawks and owls....but mostly to keep out wild song birds as they carry diseases, mites and lice. I have been hit a few times with Cocci. Lost quite a few birds last year too. My main run is now tweety bird proof. The other two runs are 95-97% wild bird free I don't think CL puts tops on hers....but she does have protection at the top to keep out racoons and other vermin.
I do have netting on top of all my coop runs.
(But my birds are let out at least evey other day to free range...)
I also have 2x4" fencing, 6 feet tall, with the rip wires on top, and no-dig at least 12" on the bottoms...BUTT, the 2x4 wire allows weasels and rats and tweeties in.
I have never had any issues with Cocci, here or in OR or in CA.
Lice & mites come & go throughout my lifetime.
best to just keep on top of it with bird dust baths, poultry dust and Permectrin II............and every 6 mo a good worming.
I have ordered Eprinex for this fall's worming..excited about that !
This worms and kills off all parasites so birds can go into winter with no parasite load.
Good night all~~
I'm liking the Eprinex. Early in the spring, quite a few of my birds got mites, not a bad case, but some. I treated all with permectrin poultry dust and gave all birds older than 20 weeks a dose of Eprinex. I checked all my birds again yesterday, and I found a few mites near the vent on the younger birds, but no mites at all on any of the birds that got the Eprinex. In September, I will be treating the entire flock with Eprinex (need to wait for cash to pay for the new bottle as DS accidentally spilled the other one in the coop.)