"Marshall Wilkinson" writes:
We are planning to fence off our small orchard (15 m x 15 m) which has a
couple of plum, pear, peach and apple trees and double the fence as a chook
yard. We plan to have half a dozen or so chooks and plant forage for them as
well as a few other fruit trees. Can anyone foresee any problems with this?

The chooks will love it. The only things I'd point out are that you'll
never manage to keep any compost around the base of the trees, and it might
be handy to have a small enclosure where you can put the chooks for a few
days if you need to spray the fruit trees (avoiding spray drift, and excess
will drip onto the grass beneath the trees).

The fruit trees are 2 - 3 m tall and we plan to cover the top but are still
working on a design. If we use hardwood posts what should the spacing be and
is chicken wire the best thing to use over the top/roof of the orchard/chook
yard?

Is the netting top to keep the chooks in or the hawks out? If there is any
danger of foxes or dogs, make sure you deeply bury part of the netting with
a wire through it to keep it down. It would be wise to have a henhouse in
which the chooks are locked up overnight, for your peace of mind.
--
John Savage (for email, replace "ks" with "k" and delete "n")