Chicken Wire Help

Ok, it has come to putting up a chicken wire fence around my veggies. The rabbits have left nothing but stems of my green beans. How high, and what size of chicken wire works best. I have just a small area to surround. ( 10' x 8' ) Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

I even tried the hot sauce spray on the leaves and apparently they loved it.

Thanks in Advance, Kathy

Reply to
Kathy
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Kathy, be sure you get the chicken wire with 1" mesh - not

2" mesh. Baby rabbits can probably get through the larger mesh, also it's not nearly as strong and tends to flop about two much.

Chicken wire - at least here - comes in 2' and 3' heights (and higher). But - for rabbits - higher isn't necessary.

I'd get the 3' height, thinking that it will also serve to keep out cats, small-to-medium sized dogs, and maybe other critters better than a 2' high fence.

We have two dogs - one's about 65 lbs and the other about 70 lbs. Neither has ever jumped 3' chicken wire, although I am sure they could if they tried.

What they have done, though, was to put their front paws on it and then put as much of their weight on it as they could, and bend it down that way, then step over. We replaced it with welded-wire fencing in a general fence re-arrangment. But rabbits aren't going to do that.

Pat

Reply to
Pat Meadows

Yes, the last thing you want is a baby rabbit trapped in your garden and getting frantic...

We've used two kinds of stakes (at different times) -

  • small wooden stakes - bought from a lumberyard, I don't know what they're called. I didn't buy them myself. Then you can just staple the chicken wire to them.

  • metal posts intended for woven wire fencing - you can use a bit of wire to fasten the chicken wire to these. There are more permanent of course.

I've never buried it.

In my experience, rabbits have never dug under fences. This is in the northeastern USA, maybe there are rabbits more inclined to dig elsewhere.

With my luck, since I've posted this, I suppose lots of people will pop up like ...ahem....rabbits and say that mad hordes of crazed bunnies are digging under their garden fences at this very moment!! But it's never happened in my experience.

Pat

Reply to
Pat Meadows

The latest I read (my new gardening book!) says to bury the fence at least 4", although I've read previously that a foot was required. The point is that they *will* dig if you plant green beans on the other side of the fence. :-) Also, you don't need much more than 2' above ground. As for mesh size, isn't there some 'rule' about critters being able to get through any gap that's as big as their head (sideways)? 2" mesh would *definitely* admit a small rabbit.

Reply to
Frogleg

Another possibility is to use a tubing bender to create rectangles of EMT (thinwall electrical tubing) and wire the chicken wire to these permanently. They can then be picked up and moved without hassle for weeding, tilling, digging, and other garden work. This is a variation on what I do for my raised beds, where squirrels and deer the the primary vermin.

Reply to
B.Server

I tried chicken wire and the rabbits jumped over it. I got a cheap electric fence box from Lowe's that runs on 110 or a car battery. PROBLEM NOW SOLVED! However, I did have fun with my pellet rifle after giving up on the chicken wire fence before getting the electric box.

Reply to
Joe

If you are going to do that, you might as well use rabbit wire. That's the stuff rabbit cages are made of, one inch mesh welded wire screen. It's stiff enough to stand on it's own with no framing needed. Just wire the corners together, maybe a stake at the corners to keep them from being knocked around. Costs more then chicken wire, but you don't need the EMT framing so it's probably cheaper for this use. In the past when I lived in the country, I made 4 ft by 4 ft by 4 ft cages with tops of this stuff, to keep deer and open range cattle out of my plants. Just lifted it off to tend the plants.

Lorenzo L. Love

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"From the brief time that we did spend occupying Iraqi territory after the war, I am certain that had we taken all of Iraq, we would have been like the dinosaur in the tar pit -- we would still be there, and we, not the United Nations, would be bearing the costs of the occupation. This is a burden I am sure the beleaguered American taxpayer would not have been happy to take on."

-Norman Schwarzkopf, from his 1993 autobiography It Doesn't Take a Hero.

Reply to
Lorenzo L. Love

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