Welded Wire Fence- Pros and Cons?

[tinaisodd]

i used the welded wire for my run and it has worked out just fine! i found it on special at lowes 100' for a little under $60 and we actually ended up with leftovers to use for the garden next year, the one precaution we did take along with putting a small roof over half the run for rain protection was burying about a foot to a foot and a half of the wire around the coop i have a really rough drawing of it

i plan on putting all sorts of chicken friendly plants in the little garden created on the sides of the run. i live in a dog heavy neighborhood and didn't want to risk losing my babies to a digger! i plan on putting a smaller hole wire on top of the welded wire at the bottom so i feel more secure with leaving them out all day.

 

[OR4-hmom]

If going to double fence I would suggest the smaller wire on the inside of the run. Chicks can get stuck between the two if they can squeeze through the larger openings.

 

[CMLR]

I am considering using the 2x4 wire for the sides and roof of a run, with 1/2" hardware cloth buried around the perimeter and continuing up at least 24". I am just curious, of those with this set-up, how has it fared for you? Any predators getting through?

 

[breezy oaks]

I have 12 gauge welded wire on a 6 X 20 drag pen with 1 inch chicken wire on top. Also, have 2 X 12 boards along bottom with chain link fence as apron. Should I wrap bottom with chicken wire? I'm in a rural setting with all sorts of animals.

 

[Murphy212]

This is the exact set up I am working on. But not sure how to attach the hardware cloth to the welded wire? Wire clips? plain wire twisted somehow? Not sure of the best way to do this. I plan on putting the hardware cloth on the outside of the run and placing about a foot on the ground at the base to prevent digging from the outside.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[psue]

This is the exact set up I am working on. But not sure how to attach the hardware cloth to the welded wire? Wire clips? plain wire twisted somehow? Not sure of the best way to do this. I plan on putting the hardware cloth on the outside of the run and placing about a foot on the ground at the base to prevent digging from the outside.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I use cage building clips. or zip ties will do for a temporary fix.

 

[barbjess]

Several years ago you posted about using 5' welded wire fencing and t-posts as an extended run for your chickens. I have 200 feet of the 5' welded wire that I want to use to control my "free range" chickens when they are outside of their small protected run. I saw the picture of your run on your profile "my coop" and it looks like what I am hoping for. I hope you will answer a few questions for me. Did you use only t-posts and are they all just pounded into the ground (not concreted)? How did you do a gate?

Eventually I want to put up a much bigger area for chickens, ducks, etc so this extended run may be needed only a few years so I don't want a fence that I can't take down at some point but I need something that will last for 5 years or so. I can not figure out how to put together a makeshift gate using the t-posts. My daughter will help me put up the fence but she has very limited time so I need to figure out a gate solution that this old woman can do on her own.

Thank you

 

[barbjess]

Several years ago you posted about using 5' welded wire fencing and t-posts as an extended run for your chickens. I have 200 feet of the 5' welded wire that I want to use to control my "free range" chickens when they are outside of their small protected run. I saw the picture of your run on your profile "my coop" and it looks like what I am hoping for. I hope you will answer a few questions for me. Did you use only t-posts and are they all just pounded into the ground (not concreted)? How did you do a gate?

Eventually I want to put up a much bigger area for chickens, ducks, etc so this extended run may be needed only a few years so I don't want a fence that I can't take down at some point but I need something that will last for 5 years or so. I can not figure out how to put together a makeshift gate using the t-posts. My daughter will help me put up the fence but she has very limited time so I need to figure out a gate solution that this old woman can do on her own.

Thank you

I forgot to say that this post is in response to a post from HEChicken several years ago.

 

[HEChicken]

I just happened to see this.....I will try to remember to get pictures of my gate tomorrow.

 

[HEChicken]

@barbjess I am so sorry - I totally forgot to post the photos of the gate I promised you. I was fortunate to have a large post already in place when we moved here. In fact, we based our chicken yard fence on the fencing that already existed so we lined it up to meet this post. In the photo below you can see the last t-post in our row of welded wire fencing. We positioned it to allow a gap large enough to not only walk through but to pull a lawn cart or wheelbarrow through when cleaning out the coop. Then we simply attached our gate to the post that already existed. As you can see, we built the gate frame from 2x4's. To the frame we stapled a section of livestock panel. In this photo, the gate is in the full open position.


We used gate hinges to attach the gate to the post. While with most livestock gates, the hinges are positioned so that the top one points down and the bottom one points up, to prevent the livestock lifting the gate right off the hinges, because this was just to keep poultry in (and critters like skunks, possums, foxes, coyotes and raccoons out), we didn't feel there was a big risk that any of these animals would be able to lift the gate off its hinges. Therefore we positioned both hinges facing up which allows us to easily remove the gate altogether if we need to.

Here is the gate when closed. The chickens and ducks are able to get through the squares in the livestock panel, so we can leave it closed most of the time, which prevents our egg-eating dog from getting into the chicken yard during the day to steal eggs.

However at night (after eggs have been collected) the dogs are locked into the chicken yard to keep predators at bay. I use two of these double ended clips to attach the gate to the welded wire. I felt two was more secure against something pushing in over or under a single clip.

I hope this helps - let me know if you have any questions.


ETA: I forgot to mention that we used a screw eye in the gate that slips down over the gate hinge.