working on run plastic 1/2 mesh for preditor deterant on the floor?

[abhaya]

tI am building a run for my silkies. I saw some animal netting at lows it is 1/2 inch plastic mesh I c ould not tear it with my hands so seems pretty strong. do you all think it would be ok to use on the ground as a digging predator deterant I am thinking double layer and allow the grass to grow tru it so chickens can get grass but preds cant dig up into the run. This mesh would be layed on the ground grass growing up thru it. it would be to keep preds from digging up into the coop from the ground borrowing animals. I have 1/2 inch galvanized welded fence for the fence surrownding the run

 

[dsqard]

I don't know how strong the plastic is, might not be strong enough. If you can buy a small roll (I have no idea how expensive it is) and you have dogs I would suggest taking a piece of it and trying to get your dog to play "tug" with it. If it can hold up to that I would think it would work great under ground and you wouldn't have to worry about it rusting.

 

[chicmom]

Well, if you have a very determined raccoon or whatever, I believe they could chew the plastic with their teeth and get in. It probably won't be easy for the predator, but they truthfully could still get in there if they really really wanted to.

I do understand....you've gotta use what you can afford......My money is limited too. I would always recommend hardware cloth for anything though.......Chicken wire too, but they say that predators can chew through that too. So my chicken run is probably not 100% safe either. (Although I've never had any trouble yet.)

If you have a coop that you can lock them up into securely during the night, I believe that they would be fine with the plastic run enclosure.

 

[patandchickens]

No. Predators are in some cases stronger than you and your hands are, and in all cases have sharp slicing teeth that can cut the plastic apart quite easily.

(Exception: it is not so terrible, though still not the *best* material, if you are just wanting to prevent reach-through on the bottom 2-3' of your run fence, by ADDING the plastic mesh to existing predatorproof stuff like 1x1 or 2x4 mesh. It will not STOP predators from reaching through but it will prevent them from doing so really rapidly or stealthily and is quite a lot better than nothing, for that particular purpose. Don't use it *alone* though)



Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[LynneP]

I agree, be sure to use metal. You can see our set-up for predators here:

https://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=7693-our-second-coop



Plastic is just an invitation to chew!!!

 

[bantiebabe1200]

Looks like some great ideas to that should work great for predators. I agree also that plastic isn't tough enough though. I have one idea to add to the mix, but I don't have pics so I'll explain best I can.

Hardware cloth is again the choice for me, I would put it three feet high around the parimeter of the coop and the bend it at the ground and run it out along the grass on the out side of the pen another three feet and tack it down well to allow mowing over it. This keeps daytime coons and most other predators from reaching through or knawing through the fence and predators don't tend to think of digging under that far back from the edge of the fence, they will just try and try but never will get through the mesh of the hardware cloth. I would also use tent stakes to tack down the out side edges to they can't accidently pull it up witle tugging on the middle. This method prevents digging alot as well.