Fencing for chooks

Over the years we have used different fencing systems for our chooks, from fully enclosed chook runs to runs without any fencing at all. Down here at Abels Bay the size of our property is five acres, but half of that is timbered. When we only had five or six chickens we let them free-range over the property and our boundary fences were not chook-proofed. The chooks would happily explore every nook and cranny of the property. They would venture through the fences onto the nature strip, but they never crossed the road. Chickens are very territorial and tend to stay within the property. When we got more chooks we had to start separating them to avoid interbreeding. We use 900mm high chicken fencing with 50mm openings and 1mm thick wire. 1650mm long star pickets are driven 500mm deep into the ground and a loose wire is run above the mesh along the top of the pickets to extend the height to around 1150mm. Most of our chickens would be able to fly over such a fence. We clip their wings when they are young and once they are used to accepting the fence as the end of their territory they don't try to fly over it - even when the wing feathers have long grown back!

Types of fencing used on our property

The simplest solution: no fences this large paddock is not fully fenced. The birds love to have this much room to explore, but the real danger in open spaces such as this is an attack by wedge tailed eagles.

A fence using 900mm chicken wire 900mm chook wire is so much cheaper than 1800mm chook wire. Normally chooks would be able to fly over it. Our chooks had their wings trimmed when they were young. They accepted the fence, and now they don't try to fly over it even though their wing feathers have grown back. Chooks don't like to sit on floppy wire at the top of the fence. It becomes an added obstacle.

Dog mesh Dog mesh is not an economic fencing material. It is much stronger than chook mesh though. We used it in these two small enclosures so that we can let our miniature pigs dig up the ground before planting.

Fully netted enclosures The first chook run we built here at Abels Bay was fully mesh enclosed with the top covered as well. We made the experience that such a fully netted enclosure is not necessary as a protection of adult chickens against predators. It is a totally different story though where young pullets and cockerels are concerned. If you plan to raise chickens you should have a fully netted enclosure for them until they are about 15 weeks old and become too heavy for smaller birds of prey.

 Predators

Daytime dangers: chooks are easy targets for dog and cat attacks. Our property is now almost fully fenced. But  when our chooks free-ranged over the whole property in the past it would have been easy for stray cats or dogs to attack them. Luckily that has never happened. Birds of prey are a much greater risk to chooks during the daytime. Larger ones such as eagles need quite a bit of room to land and to take off. Chooks in smaller fenced areas where eagles can't land are usually safe. When we lost our best Welsummer rooster he confronted two wedge-tailed eagles in the middle of our open paddock. The rest of the flock hid among the bushes and was safe. As long as the chickens can run for cover they have a real chance against birds of prey. Young hatchlings need to be kept behind 13mm mesh. Kookaburras and crows love to swoop in and get hold of a little chick. Generally speaking we think it is much better for the older chickens to be given as much freedom to free-range as possible even at a certain risk rather than to confine them. 

The night-time: this is were the real danger lies. There are a lot of animals out there that would like to get hold of our chooks! We are very lucky in Tasmania not to have foxes! None of the chook houses we built are fox proof; luckily they don’t have to be. When we started having chooks down here we built a small chook house for our first three birds. It had a fully netted run attached to it but no door. They lived in this enclosure for a few weeks. Then we started to open the run during the day to let the chickens free-range. This worked really well and nothing bad happened. After a few weeks we didn’t even close the run at night any more. That worked well for a few months until we were woken in the middle of the night by the screams of our three chooks. We discovered that a young Tassie Devil had cornered a chook but hadn’t killed it. We chased the Tassie Devil away and all three chooks survived. The next day I installed a proper door at the chook house and all our birds have been properly locked up at night since. This way we don’t have to worry at night about Tassie Devils, Quolls, cats, dogs or anything else.