Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Poultry and Pets => The Hen House => Topic started by: LILLILEAF on June 04, 2023, 15:57
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I have just had a new poultry run built 7.5 m x 4.5 m, now i put a net on the top, a butter fly net it keeps the birds out and deters foxes.
Now i have spent around 2 hours putting the net over the top on my own i am 5 ft 6 the run is over 6 ft,
i have limited mobility but i carried on anyway to find a few small holes in the net i already had, do i take it off ?, buy a new one or put another net over the top to cover the holes, i have done the last one, right or wrong what would you do??.
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I would have done the same as you :)
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I would put extra net on some, but a solid roof on the rest to keep the coop and food area dry
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I’d think bird netting won’t be enough to stop foxes, they only have to get lucky once you & chickens need to get lucky all the time. We built a weld mesh top to ours & then added onduline over the top. The sides are also weld mesh.
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I've been told...to deter foxes leave the top section of the wire mesh/netting unsupported so foxey cannot get a purchase and jump over.
Cheers, Tony.
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Ours is 6 foot high with wire on top and the sides are wire with a smaller wire mesh lower down to stop meeces etc getting in.
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Same as Snowdrops, 50mm sq weld mesh on sides and roof with perspex on top of roof weldmesh .
I then put 25mm sq plastic coated mesh on the side on top of the bigger weld mesh to keep the sparrows out during Avian flu lockdown
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We've had problems with foxes and badgers, so we've had a big push om makimg our runs fox proof. I don't think butterfly netting complies with the regulations on bird flu but shade or debris netting might.
What we do now is house all our birds in cheap polytunnels, complete with covers. The mesh inside the covers is pretty tough stuff that a fox or badger would have problems getting through, particularly whilst being zapped every 2 seconds with an electric charge.
The frames are supported inside with timber frames that also hold up high perches. The covers are held down by sandwiching it between timbers and the sides and ends have timber from free pallets up to about 3.5 ft.the whole thing is surrounded by 3 lines of electric fencing and the whole thing fastened down against the notorious Derbyshire twisters ;) with ratchet luggage straps attached to tree stakes. There is then a 120cm electric poultry mesh fence around the whole pen area.
If a fox ever manages to get another of our birds I'll COOK the blummin thing for it! I'll take pictures next time I'm down the farm. The thing is, the breeds we are concentrating on are costing an arm and a leg to get eggs, so we are doing everything we can to prevent losses.