wire around coop

[aart]

I think steeples is a colloquial term.....
all are staples, differentiated by a prefix ie: paper, poultry, fencing, etc.....or a size, overall and gauge
....but I like it.

 

[Howard E]

I think steeples is a colloquial term.....
all are staples, differentiated by a prefix ie: paper, poultry, fencing, etc.....or a size, overall and gauge
....but I like it.

Probably is colloquial. Some well informed linguist could probably peg my upbringing to within 100 miles or so.

Not unlike the differences between you all, you-ins and y'all, the latter of course being the singular. More than one (the plural) is "all y'all".

 

[Howard E]

I do it just like Howard E excepting cut two sides longer so the perimeter is complete rectangle. Likely they wont attempt to dig at the corner but what the heck it's only a few more feet and you get the harware cloth in rolls. We use 14 gauge welded wire around the run, the coops have floors and hard ware cloth on openings. If you've no floor in coop I'd use heaviest gauge hardware cloth in 1/2 inch you can find.

You all forgot the most common predator in towns (excepting neighborhood dogs that is)- skunks! They indeed will dig right under in no time and kill a bird.

I agree. Part of the reason I went with 1" x 2" wire was to repel skunks. Last year I had one dig his way into the horse barn and I think the slot he was using was no more than 2" x 4". I came to believe he could get through a 2" x 4" slot if he wanted to.......or one of his descendants. The one I was dealing with is no more. 12 gauge for the hopelessly curious.

Also, this building is portable. So if I want to move it, I can dig out the wire aprons, fold them up, hook onto to those wire loops at the ends of the skids with a log chain and off we go. If a varmint figures out he can dig under the tips of the skids, I can always hook on with a tractor, lift the corner airborne, slid some more wire under it and button it up that way. So far, it is holding.........can't see where a single one has even tried......so far.

 

[TerryH]

Probably is colloquial.  Some well informed linguist could probably peg my upbringing to within 100 miles or so.

Not unlike the differences between you all, you-ins and y'all, the latter of course being the singular. More than one (the plural) is "all y'all".

We have always called them steeples 'round these here parts too. Is there some vaccine or something for this colloquialism that y'all keep talking about? It sounds painful.

 

[Blooie]

We did an apron around the perimeter of the run as well as the coop, and did it pretty much as @Howard E showed, except we put another piece at each of the corners, overlapping it. Ours we tacked down with landscape fabric staples....they go down nice and deep. Grass grew up through ours in no time and we just mow right up to the edge of the run. Glad we did it that way. Predators don't have to be wildlife - a dog can dig into a run and cause no end of grief too.

 

[bajabirdbrain]

Originally Posted by Howard E

I now live in the country where we have all manner of varmints. Prior to that, I lived in town. We had as many, if not more, raccoons in town than we have here. And I always suspected a possum was living under our concrete patio although I never saw him. Some animal was. We had more deer in town that we do here. In short, varmints are everywhere.

This is how I installed the wire apron around the house. This is 1" x 2" 14 gauge welded wire.......part is 2 feet wide and part is 3 feet as the place I bought it from ran out of the 2 foot, which should be wide enough to do it.

So there is a 4 inch leg bent along the house side into a L shape.....it is tacked to the runners with fence steeples.......not staples....steeples. The runners are the same as what could be the wood base of a run. The fall is then laid out on the ground and staked down. Since mine was laid out over grass, I got out the lawnmower and scalped it down to 1 inch, and laid the wire on that. Part was on bare ground where my compost bin used to sit.

To hold the wire down along the edges, I used 99 cent tent stakes I got from Walmart......basically large nails with a perfectly shaped plastic head, to hold them down. That holds the wire aprons tight to the ground and I can then mow over them. After 2 weeks or so, the grass has grown up enough you can hardly tell the wire is there. A digger will know when he tries to get past it.

This is how they looked when I installed them and then again about 2 weeks later.


Howard: You have done a nice job on your wire protection. We have chosen to be a bit more "hill billy" than you. We first bought some green wire, 2ft wide and it looked good but when we got it home it turned out to be something called rabbit fencing? Had small openings, like 1/2" and the it got progressively larger towards to top. We went back to Home Depot and bought just simple chicken fencing, sort of wimpy but it still is better than nothing. We underlapped it about 4" under our pea gravel/paver foundation. We tried using landscape cloth wire "staples" and they didn't work very well. These are about 3--4" long and about an inch wide but bend too easily when pushed into the ground. I am going to use either fender washers and nails or cut some strips of rolled aluminium to hold things down. Shouldn't be too difficult. TBC BB

 

[Howard E]

Hillbilly? The only thing hillbilly about that effort is the hill. Looks pretty good.

I tried a lot of things to hold the aprons down, but the best of them was those 99 cent tent stake nails from Walmart. They even have the plastic hold down head on them. If a person had rocky ground they could pound those in with a hammer.

As a reminder, the reason these aprons seem to work is when a digging predator goes at it to dig his way in, they start digging at the corner between the vertical upright of the coop and the horizontal surface that is the ground. They just follow the coop wall down the ground and that is where they start. Notice how I did the apron with the short vertical leg (about 4 to 6 inches) attached to the side of the skids. So if a predator started digging, he is going to encounter something he can't get through. So he may start casting up and down the line and try again and again, but always finds the same thing.......a wire apron he can't dig through. When Blooie said she overlapped the corners, that is the reason. If they make it to the corners, they will encounter the same thing all the way up and down the line, including the corners on hers. What he never figures out is he has to back up a couple feed, out past what he is standing on, to start his dig way out there and tunnel his way in.

The point to all that being the most critical part of that is to make sure he encounters wire or something he can't get through right at the corner between upright coop wall and flat ground. For you it looks like that will be a stone paver base. with maybe some bricks to retain the mulch beyond that and the first wire they would encounter is beyond that. I suspect a digger would start just outside the stone paver base, so whatever is under the mulch you are spreading is what the barrier will be. Also, with the apron laying on the ground, whatever you put down there will be subject to more corrosion problems than if it is upright. Chicken wire may not be as durable as welded wire, either in strength to repel boarders and may rust out sooner.

But that all assumes you ever get a digger in the first place. Mine has been up since last year and I've never seen any evidence that one has ever tried to dig his way under in all that time, even though I know they are out there all the time, including tonight (smells like a skunk may have found my electric fence and became incontinent.....the poor dear).

 

[Howard E]

PS: One of the reasons I like the apron vs. a buried wire (aside from it is about 1,000X easier to lay wire on the ground than to dig a trench.....who would do that?..........) is a digger that encounters a buried wire may simply keep digging and follow the wire down. So that becomes a race or battle of wills.........who quit first.......you when digging your trench or the varmit who is doing the digging? How deep will he go before he gives up?

NOT a rhetorical question. For those of you who have had diggers go at your buried wire, how deep did they go before they gave up?

 

[bajabirdbrain]

We are guardedly optimistic that predators will not be much of an issue. We do have raccoons but they "seem" to leave us alone. We routinely have fish and crab remains in a bucket or two overnight after cleaning our catch and nothing gets into them before we can dispose of the leftovers. Coyotes are seen occasionally but we have never seen them around our house. Our mini lap lab patrols her property with thoroughness not that she would do much except bark in an encounter. We do have a fair number of eagles, hawks, and owls. For these we will have the entire coop/run netted to prevent aerial attacks.

The wire apron will be overlapped for sure at the corners. And to repeat, the wire starts under the pavers/gravel/fence and will go outwards about 18". If any evidence of attempted entry is noted more deterrents will be put in place. Over the years we have fought the wars of squirrels in bird feeders, rats eating bird food on the ground, and petty thieves in rural Baja. We haven't won every battle but we put up a great fight and keep adapting as necessary.

BB

 

[Howard E]

With that type of predatory load around, you can be almost 100% certain all of them are going to try. So best plan is to assume the worst and hope for the best and if it all works out right, they just might make it to the ripe old age of 2 or 3 years.

But it sounds like you have taken the predator threat serious and are off to a good start. A lot of growers don't and a lot of growers get wiped out. It is only after the fact they find out the extent a person has to go to to keep their birds safe from predators.