Janet writes about simple homesteading and raising livestock on her blog Timber Creek Farm. Just getting started with backyard chickens? Here’s a free chicken coop plan for an easy 3×7 coop design that recommends 1/2” hardware wire. Paying extra attention to overall coop safety and your chicken fences will pay off over and over, and keep your chickens healthy and happy. Broken, worn wire sticking out can cause scratches, eye injuries and cuts. Chicken toes can get caught in the wire and lead to broken toes. Chicken wire should never be used as a flooring for a coop as it can contribute to foot injuries, including bumblefoot. Since chicken wire is flimsy, it can break and fall apart leaving hazards for your chicken’s feet. When you find yourself asking what does a chicken coop need, you can generally cross chicken wire off that list. One reason to shy away from chicken wire is the possibility of it causing injury to your birds. Safety Issues Of Chickens and Chicken Wire Make sure you attach it to the window or vent openings using screws, and a sturdy board to hold it in place. Hardware cloth is most often a galvanized, welded metal product that is extremely durable. I personally recommend either the 1/2 inch or 1-inch mesh. The 1/4 inch size has a very tiny mesh and the 2 x 2 and 2 x 4 mesh would be too large of a mesh, allowing small predators to slip through. Hardware cloth comes in various size mesh. All of the windows are covered with hardware cloth with 1-inch square openings.

In our chicken coop, we have six windows. I am not sure how it got the name because it is much stronger than cloth! It does not bend as easily and is welded making it a stronger product. The preferred wire fencing for a secure chicken fence is called hardware cloth. What To Use Instead Of Chicken Wire for Chicken Fences Īnd Chicken wire makes a pretty interesting texture in a photograph. When they reach a wire barrier they will often quit digging and move to another spot.Ĭhicken wire is great for craft projects, building armatures for sculptures. Most predators will only try to dig in for a short time. Make a more permanent fence repair as soon as possible.Ĭhicken coop wire is good for burying underground around the perimeter of the chicken coop and run to deter predators from digging into the coop. Fold or crumple up a piece of chicken wire and stuff it into the hole. Where Chicken Wire Can Be Used SuccessfullyĬhicken wire can be used to keep pullets separated from the older chickens inside the chicken pen and run.Ĭhicken wire might be a good barrier to keep the chickens out of your garden.Ĭhicken wire is also useful when temporarily plugging holes at the fence baseline to keep chickens in the run. In short, chicken wire is helpful in keeping chickens in, but not very good at keeping chicken predators out. It is similar to cloth in that it is woven together. Predators can easily move it out of their way, rip it or tear it open to gain access to your chickens or other small vulnerable livestock. While it may keep a small flock of chickens in a set area, it is not very strong. There are some instances where chicken wire is the perfect choice of wire, but when talking about securing your feathered friends in their chicken runs and coops, I do not recommend chicken wire. Apparently, the town of Norwich, where Barnard Junior had his business, had a plentiful supply of cloth weaving machines.” He developed it for his father, a farmer, the manufacturing process being based on cloth-weaving machines.

“Chicken wire was invented in 1844 by British ironmonger Charles Barnard. In the blog, Bytes Daily, Otto wrote a little explanation of chicken wire. If it’s called chicken wire, it must be for chickens, right? Chicken wire is widely recognized as the hexagon shaped welded wire, commonly used on farms for various fencing needs, including for chicken fences.

Lowes chicken wire