Stop burying your chicken coop wire fence flat on the ground

I keep seeing new folks in here posting photos of their runs with hardware cloth just laid on the dirt inside the fence. That's basically a welcome mat for predators. Last spring up in Portland, a raccoon dug under my coop in one night and got three of my best layers. The wire needs to go out at least 12 inches horizontally from the fence and then get buried 6 inches deep. That creates an L-shape barrier they can't tunnel past. I learned this the hard way after losing 75 bucks worth of birds and spending a whole Saturday reinforcing everything. Why do so many tutorials skip this part?

2 comments

2 Comments

vera_lewis27d ago

Actually 12 inches out and 6 down is too much. 6 inches out and 12 down works better in wet clay.

mark_cooper26d ago

Whoa wait, did you just say 6 inches out? That seems tiny for wet clay!