Will my fence be too low? Too near trees?

[henrietta101]

what do you used for a covering? A shade cloth?

 

[kittykat01]

Quote:
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[maclady]

Has anyone of your chickens tried to go over the fence yet? Mine have a 4 foot fenced area (mostly to keep dogs out) they free range when I am home. Only one of my girls ever went over it and it was with the help of a chair. I moved the chair and now they stay put. I have their raised coop inside a dog kennel which I covered with doubled up bird netting to keep hawks out and they stay there when I am not at home. I think it is mostly see what will work with your girls. Some of us have escape artists and some don't.

 

[aoxa]

I'll show you my run, which is 4 ft tall. Only 1 escaped only to want back in and wasn't smart enough to do it herself. Good thing my neighbour is obsessed with my chickens, as well as almost every kid in the neighbourhood. They all come over multiple times a day to check on them. We actually had up to 10 kids over yesterday afternoon around 3pm. I just love my village!

Notice how I don't have any bars on the top. This is what keeps them from flying over. They have nowhere to land before they make the leap. Not sure what I am going to do in winter when the snow piles really high, but I'll figure it out. Or I will have to shovel it all out! That's a huge run! This is only half of it (dog house is our quarantine area. We can block off this fence from the main one.

 

[georgiagail]

henrietta101

What material did your husband make the run out of?

There was an ongoing post regarding someone who was using a four foot high dog kennel for their run, wanted to cover it for safety and security reasons but was concerned that a flat roof would make it more difficult to enter and work in the run without having to uncomfortably hunker down.

They solved the problem by doing a "hoop" roof similar to what we did on our first run. The "hoop" area gave them enough headroom to comfortably work in the run.

Our first one:

Depending on the size of your run it may be less expensive to cover it rather than replacing the fencing but if you do cover it (and it's only waist high) you'd need to think about whether you might ever need to go in there to, say, clean it out.

Gail

 

[Cambium29]

Our banties flew over a 6' fence like it wasn't even there. One of our larger birds was adept at getting over it, too, although not as often. There is big oak tree over part of the yard so covering the yard with something permanent was out of the question. We bought a large piece of "bird netting" that is normally used to cover ponds or fruit trees and simply hang that over the yard to keep the chickens in. A 28 by 28 foot section was about $40.

So far, so good.

 

[kingdr85]

deer netting works good to cover it...pretty easy to work with and not expensive.

 

[henrietta101]

bird netting is a good idea. the run is fine and enclosed, but it is the adjoining yard part that we have sectioned off that I am concerned about. We dont have deers where I live but it gives me ideas.

 

[Katydid2011]

We had a five foot pasture fence with a hot wire running around it top and bottom and none of our hens challenged it... until they did. Two of my favorite 20-week old hens, raised by me from day one, flew over and were killed by a dog. I was absolutely heartsick. I went through and clipped the right-side flight feathers on each of our 50 birds and raised the fence height to six feet and they can't fly over now. I've watched them try. We've made sure that all low shrubbery and trees are well back from the fence line. They make excellent places for the chickens to hide from predators and they love to disappear inside of the foliage. They also love to climb their way up and flap their way down...

I highly recommend that you clip your chickens flight feathers and raise your fence.

 

[henrietta101]

yes they are too precious to risk