Woven wire or welded wire for chicken yard?

[Engteacher]

I have all the posts and braces in for a 16 X 30' chicken yard. I'm making it 6' high. Should I get welded wire or woven wire? I'm planning on putting 3' of hardware cloth around the bottom to stop reach through.

Thanks, guys!

 

[elmo]

Woven wire is not as strong as welded wire. Woven will not keep predators out the way welded wire would. Reinforcing woven wire with hardware cloth at the bottom will stop reach through predation at that level, but a raccon could simply climb higher, rip apart the wire, and gain access to the run and your chickens that way.

Do try to pick a lower gauge (thickness) for your wire, too.

 

[teach1rusl]

I used welded wire on my run, but I'm not clear on "woven wire." Are you talking like field fence/livestock fence?? I do have field fence around my property, and when the chickens are out, they never go through it. If you are running three feet of HWcloth around the base, either should work if you're closing them inside their housing at night. If not though, I might go with welded, as I think field fence has more give with the openings....

 

[elmo]

Chicken wire is woven: they take two strands of wire and wrap them around each other to make the fence. With welded wire, the connections between the horizontal and vertical wires are each welded, which is why it's so much stronger (and more expensive).

 

[teach1rusl]

Ohhh...CHICKEN wire. Oh no, I never recommend chicken wire. So if you go the cheap route (chicken wire), you would definitely need to make sure that your chickens are closed inside a housing every night, as pretty much any predator can tear through chicken wire. I would go with welded if you're comparing welded w/chicken type wire... There is no camparison.

 

[Engteacher]

No, I don't mean chicken wire. I mean the stuff that field fences are made from. I want to stretch it taut so that it doesn't get saggy. I am worried that welded wire will pop and break the fusing of wire to wire when I pull it tight. That's why I was thinking of a heavy gauge woven wire. Here's a link:

http://www.redbrand.com/products/product2.asp?category=Fence&subcat=2&productID=1

 

[elmo]

If you're working with a welded wire that breaks when you pull the fence taut, it's a pretty poor product.

The welding gives the fence structural strength. I've never worked with the product you're looking at, but reading the description I see that it is designed to have some "give" in it. I would think that would make getting it trickier to get it installed tight. You'd need to stretch it out like chain link, I'd imagine.

9 gauge is a very good, strong thickness, though. Anything wanting in that fence would have to be small enough to slip through the openings in the wire!

 

[Happy Chooks]

Quote:
My orchard (which is also my chicken run) is surrounded with 6 foot non-climb field fence. Works fine, but had to do a separate "obstacle" course after losing a girl to a hawk. No more hawk problems. Okay, don't laugh, here's the picture:

 

[bethanyrae]

Quote:
My orchard (which is also my chicken run) is surrounded with 6 foot non-climb field fence. Works fine, but had to do a separate "obstacle" course after losing a girl to a hawk. No more hawk problems. Okay, don't laugh, here's the picture:
http://i822.photobucket.com/albums/zz145/new2chooks/IMG_1360.jpg

Ha ha ha ha.
Really, though. I'm not laughing. I have that holographic ribbon strung up all around my run, too, against hawks. The neighbors' guests asked them if we were having a party.

What do you mean by "non-climb" field fence?
Thanks,
bethanyrae