Chicken boarders

[chickchick2012]

With all this rain we've been having my new 7ft x 5ft and 6ft high wir has got very wet. Luckily I don't have the chickens yet but am getting a little worried about the problem of keeping them dry once they arrive.

Does anyone have any ideas please? Also, have a second question to ask of you, have been reading the reviews about the chicken netting not being tall enough. I have sent Omlet an e-mail asking them if it is possible for them to manufacture it higher. If they say 'no', how do other chicken keepers raise the height of theirs (I am going to get 3 bantams).

 

Thanks everyone!!!!

[sarahelliott]

Hi, I actually have some ikea shower curtains (very cheap!) attached to the side of my WIR which keeps all the rain out. They need a bit of wire across them to stop them flapping about in the wind, but they really do the job well!

 

[jackian]

Welcome to the forum and good luck when you get your new girls ....I have a WIR and when we first had the girls they had an added attraction of a swimming pool

There we were on a very wet sunday adding a roof.

Ours is corregated plastic sheeting which you can get from most DIY places .On the long edge is 2 lengths of guttering so that the water goes into a water butt. It needs to be slightly sloping though to let the rain off.

[HH HENS]

Hi Just to say that I have been using the normal height poultry netting for three years with 14 hens and I haven't had any trouble with them flying over they seem to get use to the patch that they are on and are quite happy. If you have it powered up they get a shock once then don't try to get through it.

On the subject of your wet wir, do be careful where you site it as I have currently got a flooded wir. It has a roof on it but because it is slightly lower than the rest of the garden, with all this rain we have had it has just pooled into the pen. I have hard wood chips down which are floating at the moment. I have pallets all over the place trying to supply them with some dry ground, its a nightmare.

[Melbourne12]

I agree about siting the WIR carefully. Some places are just prone to puddles. Our WIR is raised on railway sleepers, and the area covered with hardwood chips. The WIR has a polycarbonate roof, but the sides are simply open weldmesh. We've also provided some straw bales as a windbreak. This seems a good compromise - the run stays pretty dry, but is well ventilated.

 

ETA: We find ordinary 1 metre netting quite adequate to contain the free ranging of the birds, but ours are Ixworths, which are quite heavy large fowl. I think we've only once had a hen get over the fence, when she was startled and did a heroic jump.

[chickchick2012]

Thanks everyone for your replies - I love the Ikea curtain idea and the warnings about the positioning of the WIR with regard to flooding. Back to the drawing board then!!!!!

Thanks again.