Chicken Fencing

[Anonymous]

I am a newbie to chickens, what is the best way to fence chickens in? Someone mentioned electric netting, is this suitable? if so will the chickens fly over? Can anybody recomend where to buy a good fence kit for little money?

 

[Anonymous]

Hi,

I too am fairly new to keeping chickens but one thing I have discovered is that unless there is a solid fence for them to jump up to they tend not to go over the fence.... but saying that they have tried too.

My ckickens will hop up to 5 feet, I have used what they call Dog fencing (small at the bottom getting larger as you go up, fully grown chickens can't get through it. Electric fencing is used by people for keeping them in I even used the plastic fencing the orange stuff you see used by construction companies. However if the wings have not been clipped they will jump out /over in my experience. I made the silly mistake of clipping both wings... yup as I say just a beginner. I hope the feathers grow back so I can do it properly this time and only do the one side. I have now purchased books etc so I dont make a mistake again.

You can get Rabbit fencing fairly cheaply, go to a builders merchant, or fencing supplier. If you go to B&Q, Homebase and those type of places you will pay through the nose. The next best place is of course the internet, you can get 50 mtr rolls of rabbit fencing from Ebay for only £40 so you will need to shop around but decide what kind of fencing you want before hand and if its temporaly or permanent.

Good luck, they are great as you probably already know

 

[Anonymous]

I bought electric fencing for mine when we moved house because we now have a dog - it has been VERY effective at keeping the dog away from them, and my birds don't get over it. It depends on the breed. Because they are bantams I added a fine mesh plastic barrier for the bottom 18" around the inside or they get through the mesh if the battery goes flat - and they'd only have to do that once to end up as dog food.

I am hoping it will be better at keeping foxes off than other types of fence - the previous people had chickens that were got by foxes.

 

[Anonymous]

we have five ex bats that are digging up our veg beds if we let them out loose.

so we want to fence them in to an area about 300 foot x 30 foot, plenty big enough so they can't turn the grass into mud.

how high should the fencing be, or in other words how high can they jump?

we don't want to put a top on it, too expensive.

we don't really want to clip them either.

thanks

Mike

 

[snifter]

Just normal electric netting will be fine. Usually 1 metre high. They won't bother going over if they have plenty to keep them busy inside the run.

IIRC you can get it in different lengths. We had a 50m roll from MVF. We got the green one and its been fine for all our chooks when used.

http://www.molevalleyfarmers.com/pd5_FENCING_ELEC-FENCE_NET[a]ROPE_15479_NET-POULTRY-ORANGE-50M.htm

TBH clipping one wing on each bird won't be a problem if they do go over. But they tend not to. Just make sure any fencing is well away from any housing so they can't get up on it and over.