"Nick Maclaren" wrote in message
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given writes:
| "TC" wrote in message
|
| I've been told that some animals can bite through chicken wire
|
| Foxes round here will get through it. They must rake it repeatedly
with
| their claws till it breaks. they certainly have managed to break into
my
| outer pen on multiple occasions.

What gauge? Chicken wire comes from gauges that I can tear with only
gloved hands up to stuff that I need wire-cutters for.

It is a lighter guage stuff that was used for the outer pen - the inner
night yard is a heavier guage but the sodding foxes broke the gate on one
occasion and knocked off 11 birds in one night. I left the bodies and slit
them open and stuffed snail bait into the carcase and the bodies
disappearred aver about 3 nights. That cleared out a den on the creek where
I knew there were at least 2 cubs.

The light guage stuff surrounds about a quarter of an acre (also serves as
the orchard) and I have gradually moved right round it putting a heavier
guage wire right round it to about waist height - that has worked (so far)
but it took me a year or more to do what with one thing and another.

As you can imagine with a fence of that area, I have been able to keep a
good eye out on the fox activity. They seem to spend days putting pressure
on one area. For a few days it will be an indentation and scumbled earth
near a site they are working on, then a single broken wire will appear and
then over a few days a gradual and increasing number of broken wires till it
is obvious that they have made an incursion. They can get through amazingly
small holes. It's at that stage that I've repaired the holes. I like to
let them waste a lot of time.

The other thing the bozos did when they built the fence was that they didn't
either bury about a ft of wire or lay the wire out on the ground for about a
ft on the foxward side. I've now done that as I went around, so far so
good.

A mistake that people may be making is to use the very lightweight
stuff designs to keep part-grown chicks in as a fox barrier. I can
easily see that won't work.

And are you sure that it is foxes and not badgers making the initial
entry? Badgers like eggs, after all :-)

Nope. It was foxes. We don't have badgers in Australia and there are no
dingos or uncontrolled pet dogs round here (they'd get shot).