Doubling up chicken wire?

[yknowthatgirl]

Hi there,

I'm in the process of getting supplies together to build my coop.

My dilemma is that I know I should use hardware cloth because it has smaller holes. However. It's 3 times the price of 1" chicken wire.

Could I just overlap the chicken wire so I would create similar sized holes to the hardware cloth? I don't have a TON of money to put into the coop, however I want my chickens to be safe from predators. I would like to build them a 10'x50' space, but I won't have the money to do so if I need to spend $67 on 30"x50' of hardware cloth.


Thanks!

 

[Louise Waffles]

Buy hardware cloth. Doubling chicken wire won't keep your birds safe. It's not only about the size of the holes, but the strength of the wire. Better to spend the money than have your flock decimated by a predator. Get the hardware cloth with the smallest holes, because I've heard about racoons taking a chicken apart through the wires.

 

[Dmontgomery]

Delay building the coop until you've saved enough to get the hardware cloth. Doubling the chicken wire will not work nearly as well.

 

[Howard E]

Hi there,

I'm in the process of getting supplies together to build my coop.

My dilemma is that I know I should use hardware cloth because it has smaller holes. However. It's 3 times the price of 1" chicken wire.

Could I just overlap the chicken wire so I would create similar sized holes to the hardware cloth? I don't have a TON of money to put into the coop, however I want my chickens to be safe from predators. I would like to build them a 10'x50' space, but I won't have the money to do so if I need to spend $67 on 30"x50' of hardware cloth.


Thanks!

I think you answered your own question. If you want them to be safe, chicken wire isn't going to do that. Even doubled. So we are not talking "in addition to", but rather "instead of", so the difference between "safe" and doubled chicken wire is the difference between what the hardware cloth costs less the cost of one or two layers of chicken wire.

BTW, if your total area is 10' x 50', you are going to need 120 linear feet of whatever wire you get, plus the posts to hang it on, plus any roof or canopy cover over it.

Perhaps start small and what you can afford and then start saving to "grow" this into what you really want?

 

[dheltzel]

I use 2x4 welded wire for a lot of building. No coon or fox is ripping through that and it is much cheaper than HW cloth. The concern with that is that coons can easily reach through it to grab a bird, pull it's head out, and eat the head. I've seen the results and now use HW cloth anywhere a coon might be successful reaching through. I tend to use both together to make it inpenetrable, but only need to go 2 ft up from the ground. The other problem with the larger wire is that wild birds get through it easily. That is where the 1" poultry netting is ideal. Add that to the welded wire and the birds can't get in.

 

[ChickenMammX4]

Chicken wire is not strong enough, even doubled, to keep predators out. Check out Amazon, when we built our run, the prices couldn't be beat.

 

[Flock In Texas]

My coop is Fort Knox with hw cloth under welded wire. They are very safe at night.

During the day, my dogs protect the yard and I think they wouldn't try to get through a portable chicken wire enclosure. I can mate it to the portable coop. I may put electric wire around the base and attach it to my existing electric wire on the yard fence. Once they get bit a few times, they will lose interest and I can unplug it sometimes if the enclosure is not near the fence.

My dogs are getting used to the chickens and their grazing area under their coop. One dog even licked a chicken while I was holding her.