Fox proofing

[Nashelle]

Hi all, I need some advice please on fox-proofing.
My chickens have a sleeping area, an indoor space and a net-covered outside run but there's no grass left. I'd like to give them more room to roam.
There's another large outside area which is surrounded by an 8ft chain link fence but I need to be certain no foxes can get in or over and I'm not sure what to do.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Fox are diggers, you need to add skirting around the chain fence to keep them from going under it. They (and plenty of other critters) can climb as well - you should electrify the chain. Use the fence as your "ground", run a couple lines of hot on the outside so that anything attempting to climb will have to contact a hot wire and get a shock. You don't need a huge Joule charge, a solar powered system should be just fine if you don't have power out there.

You are looking for something like this to offset your wire from your fence. Available in other colors (black, most commonly). I like the visibility of yellow as a reminder. Zareba makes some too, with metal "legs", I like their products mostly, but not for this application - they require more work to install (different brand, copying Zareba's design).

 

[Ridgerunner]

Good advice above. Do an internet search on "fox climbing fence" to see what you are protecting against. In any of this beware of gates. They can become weak points.

How much fencing are you talking about? Some people put a hot wire pretty close to the soil so a critter cannot dig underneath without getting shocked. The problem with that is that the grass and weeds grow up though it and short it out when it gets wet so you need to keep grass and weeds down. That can be a lot of maintenance. If you can attach an apron or skirt to the bottom of the fence so nothing can get through and lay about 18" to 2 feet flat outside the run you'll stop diggers. I like to bury that about 2" (basically under the sod) to keep it out of weed eaters and lawn mowers.

A couple of hot wires on insulators higher up can stop climbing critters. Another method used is to incline the top of the fence so a critter has to hold on up-side-down to get over. You see these on a lot of industrial security fences. These are attachments that go on the top of the posts and stick out at a 45 degree angle that you cover with mesh wire. You'll often see barbed wire on those but that is against humans, not raccoons and foxes. Zoos sometimes use this method to keep certain critters in.