and back to chickens....

[dilbertina]

ok, am about to make the leap into proud chicken ownership...

I have got a chicken house with a smallish integral run, I was planning to let them out into rest of garden when we're at home, however I'm having a last minute panic that even when we're home, we can't see much of the garden from the house (no it's not a huge garden - garage in way!)...we are pretty rural and garden is well fenced. Never seen fox very near but we have had mink in our garden a couple of times (in middle of day)....

Has anyone tried the electric poultry netting? as I'm not convinced anything else would keep the mink out of reasonable size area. Don't want to leave chickens shut in smallish run all the time....

please oh chickeny mumsnetters, anyone got any advice?!

sorry no idea, but as a rural dwelling chickenvirgin too, i will bump this to find out.

i do have foxes in the field on the other side of the hedge from the area ill be keeping the chickens in... was wondering about the lekkie fence...

Hi Pissy, On the face of it the electric netting seems a good solution, especially since I'd like to be able to move "their" area around a bit to give the grass a rest. Tis pretty expensive though and don't want to make expensive error! If it helps you the cheapest I can find for 25m kit is from these people:

www.solwayfeeders.com

am currently trying to find out from them what battery is "included". Would ideally want solar charged one but they are v expensive so think I'll go for 2 small rechargeable ones and charger.....

I think if you want to always keep in one space a chicken wire solution would work but by the time you've got proper weld mesh wire, and wood and dug chicken wire down deep enough and built secure run....the electric fencing is starting to look cheap...!

I think you need to have them totally secure tbh - not sure if the electric would work or not - but if it isn't secure then the fox/mink would soon find out!

hmmm... you may both have a point.

right well I've gone for it and ordered the netting kit(£135) The battery it comes with is they admit the cheapest poss. and crap, so have ordered a rechargeable one (£9.99)and charger (14.99). They reckon each charge will last up to 3/4 months and then can recharge overnight so I decided a back-up battery was not required.

So, will get chickens shortly and see what happens...will report back pissy!

mmm.

the lovely fencing bloke is here today as it happens... putting up the rabbit/chicken fence round the area im having the chickens 'free range' inside of (to keep rabbits etc out, and chickens in)

spoke about making it electric... and he reckons it would need to be really high (for our fence/space) and i thought it might look a bit prison-like.

so i may just see how it goes and if i lose some, ill step up security.

i may get a couple of those 25m kits to fence them into areas within their area... but that rather negates the point of prepping them a large area of their own really... i had imagined that id need movable fenceing within the area in order to fence them out of bits that get bare and need reseeding

I guess fencing putting up bloke may be slightly biased though!

My netting is green so not too obnoxious. The theory is that foxes etc do not tend to hurdle fence they try to use the top to jump to, so they'll sniff first (haha take that mr fox!) in theory the "clicking" sound will put them off even attmpting it, in any case I'm more worried about mink, rats and cats...and my own dog who has access to garden at all times......

Well we shall see....If you just want to confine chickens to one area of a vermin proof big bit I'd have thought non electrified netting would be enough..not end of world if they occasionally escape within big area.......

oh i dunno now - i think a bit more, higher green fencing attached to the top of the post-and-rail bits of fencing (two sides of area are hedge, with the new rabbit fence inside, and i think, more protected than the other two sides)

i have no idea about mink, but the biggest predators here are likely to be foxes and rats... with possible ways in dug by rabbits, and fence damage by badgers.

i guess its suck it and see, but... im worried now about the fence sides. what with you saying they jump to the top, then from there down...

ok. have had a word and now hes going to put an extra round of that green-covered wire fencing sticking out over the top of the postandarail fencing to deter mr fox.

if we still have a prob, we'll look at lekkie fencing.

cant wait for the chickens now - they wont even be here till early april!

I've found somewhere down the road I should be able to get some on Friday! (Need to get them quick before DHs misgivings about the whole thing deepen!)

I am planning on getting 3 (he thinks 2, am getting them with dc, without him, will blame dc for overbuy...!)

How many are you planning to get pissy? Sounds like a lot more than me!

ordered 6 to start with.
was thinking 4, but dp said six, so who am i to argue ?

house holds up to ten i think.

SORRY

am pissy, doing random namechanging again. soz