wondering about plastic snow fence to expand the run

[shend]

I would love to have free range chickens but live too close to the woods to trust their safety. My run is going to be about 12 by 12 and very secure, but I wonder if I could use inexpensive orange plastic snow fence and move it around so they can forage in the summer.

Would they find a way out of this? I know it would not withstand an attack at nite but during the day at least they'd have relative safety and it would be easy to move to a new area with fresh goodies to scratch.

Any suggestions?

BTW, dont' have my chickens yet

 

[Kittymomma]

I wouldn't. If you clipped wings it would "probably" contain them, but as you noted, it won't do anything to stop a predator. I've had more daytime attacks (prob. cause I freerange and they're locked up at night) then nightime ones here. Coyotes, neighbor dogs, bobcats, etc. will all take birds during the day and if you don't figure out how to cover it you'll likely lose some to hawks and/or eagles too. Sorry to be so negative, but you gotta remember that everything likes chicken dinner.

 

[LaurelRidgeDreams]

Quote:
We put up a plastic chicken fence to give our chickens a place to free range when we were outside with them. There are lots of predators here. This fencing is about as thick as snow fencing and is 3 feet tall. First day out, one of the EEs flew over it. So, we added deer netting to the top. Something started chewing holes in the plastic at night. A game camera identified the culpret, a rabbit.

After this, we put a two foot electric poultry fence around the outside of the plastic chicken fence. The combination of the plastic fencing, poultry fence, and deer netting has allowed our chickens to free range even while we are at work. It is easy to move, just takes a while.

We have had foxes at different times, racoons at night ,and the neighbor's dog during the day. The electric fencing must be doing a good job. I forgot to mention hawks, they haven't tried to go through the netting.

 

[Country Parson]

We will be using snow fence this Spring/Summer/Fall for our geese & ducks. My wife will tolerate the chickens destroying her flowers and plants on the porch, but will no longer put up with geese poop on the sidewalks. The area will still be large, roughly 1/2 acre---so the geese certainly can't complain their cramped.