

You can see where the rats have tunnelled in under the wire skirt of the Eglu run in this picture.



And put the Eglu on top....

Ta da!! A (hopefully) rat proof run!! I added a tray of nice leaf mold freshly dug out from the compost bin for the girls to scratch over when they are shut in the run first thing in the morning... and their water and feeder as well, of course.
The girls are only shut in the Eglu and run from dusk till we get up in the morning....then they are let out to roam the orchard area which has a circumference of about 50 m. So they are only in the small Eglu run for an hour of so.
I MAY put down a thick layer of leaf mold and bark chippings for them to scratch around in but I need to check that its ok for them to scratch around of top of the weldmesh as I DO NOT want them to hurt their claws by scratching over it!!
I LOVE my hens!!
How are you getting on with this arrangement?
ReplyDeleteToday I was offering some paving slabs on freecycle and a woman wants them who has tried the mesh but it didn't work. So if the mesh doesn't work for you then maybe paving slabs would be an option?
Our county Vector man said 1/4" steel hardware cloth The spaces are too small for them to get through and too small for them to get their teeth into I lined my raised garden box with it. But for the shed & house I dug down 12" and out 18" from the crawlspace.and attached the hardware cloth to the crawlspace walls. I didn't like the work, but I don't like rats under the house in winter.
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