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 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?

Many thanks,

Marsh.

----------------------------
Marshall Wilkinson

Our chooks free range around our citrus orchard. Every day I rake the mulch
around the trees and the girls stand there waiting(and sometimes they don't
even wait) to fling mulch everywhere. These are silkies who are supposedly
less destructive than regular long legged chooks. We have started
encircling the trees with scrap metal from an old above ground pool, cut to
about 30 cms high. Not a pretty look but at least the roots don't get
exposed by cheerful foraging chooks. The eggs are delicious however.
PS The girls' night quarters and pen is covered with birdwire with a shade
cloth roof), Í got fed up with lifting the nesting boxes doors and finding
lumpy carpet pythons snoozing. They could squeeze through the chicken wire
to get in but couldn't get out after dinner.

Janet

"Marshall Wilkinson" wrote in message
...
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?

Nope, I run my chooks an orchard of about a quarter of an acre. Just make
sure it is fox proof. I've lost a lot of chooks and have spent a lot of
time and money on fixing up what was an abortion of a fence done by a
supposed expert fencer. Ha!

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?

Gosh you must be very rich :-)) You don't need to put a top on the whole
orchard, just make sure the chooks have a fully ceilinged night house with a
small secure ceilinged yard attached to it and let teh chooks out in the
morning and lock them up at night. It gives you extra security against
foxes, costs way less than a fully enclosed yard with netted ceiling.

Fran Higham
well as a few other fruit trees. Can anyone foresee any problems with
this?

Nope, I run my chooks an orchard of about a quarter of an acre. Just make
sure it is fox proof. I've lost a lot of chooks and have spent a lot of
time and money on fixing up what was an abortion of a fence done by a
supposed expert fencer. Ha!

What sort of mesh do you recommend - we have foxes here.



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?

Gosh you must be very rich :-)) You don't need to put a top on the whole
orchard,

Netting the top of the orchard would keep the birds from harvesting our
fruit, unless we net individual plants.

Thanks Fran,
Marsh.

"Marshall Wilkinson" wrote in message
...

Fran Higham

Nope, I run my chooks an orchard of about a quarter of an acre. Just
make
sure it is fox proof. I've lost a lot of chooks and have spent a lot of
time and money on fixing up what was an abortion of a fence done by a
supposed expert fencer. Ha!

What sort of mesh do you recommend - we have foxes here.

Just use the standard chook wire, anything finer will cost you a lot more.
BTW, when you put the wire round the outside of the pen, you will need to
either dig a trench and bury the bottom well down OR you must lay it out in
a 'skirt' which stretches out along the ground AWAY from the pen - about a
metre will do. Foxes tend to dig but they are not smart enough to figure
that they must go back a metre and dig in from there. I prefer the skirt
option to the trench option as the wire doesn't rot for a long time and it
works better under the sort of pressure teat a determined fox can exert over
weeks of trying. Also, make sure that you use slabs of concrete or bricks
in the ground at the gate, foxes usually dig here first.

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?

Gosh you must be very rich :-)) You don't need to put a top on the
whole
orchard,

Netting the top of the orchard would keep the birds from harvesting our
fruit, unless we net individual plants.

You will need to use bird wire for the whole of the pen if you want to keep
birds out and that will cost so much that you would be better off buying
eggs from a biodynamic producer who promises that the eggs are laid in
cotton wool and collected by robots dressed as milk maids :-)). It would be
much cheaper and less problems in the long run to use the really good
quality vineyard nets for each individual tree. Chicken wire will keep
silvereyes and other little birds out. The little birds aren't quite as
infuriating as the cockatoos but then they can do enormous damage and one
doesn't even notice the little rotters are there.

Chicken wire has about a 4-5 cm hole and bird wire has about a 1-2 cm hole.
There is a very good fence book called "Wires and Pliers" (no ISBN as it is
put out by the Kondinin Group) which you may be able to get on inter-library
loan.

"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")

"Fran Higham" wrote in message

Chicken wire will keep
silvereyes and other little birds out.

Who wrote that crap?

My brain must have been on holiday when I wrote ti. I should have written
that that birdwire will keep out the silvereyes. Chickenwire will, of
course, still let them through. It is the little birds that do as much
damage as the big birds.