I think you will find a skirt on surface under the gravel a good investment.Definitely will do a daily perimeter scan! We are home everyday most of the day so that will be no problem. Oh okay! That is a good idea about the skirt! Will probably go ahead and do that before we lay down the rocks! We are so excited for our chickens and we just want them to be as safe as possible, as affordably as possible!
And it will be much harder to install once you have the gravel!
Honestly if cost is an issue I would skip the gravel until you can afford to add it on top of a hardware cloth skirt.