need advice for enhanced dogproofing of my fence

Kenshi

Summary: does anybody know where I can get about two hundred metal stakes, 6" long or so, that have a hook at the end? Or are maybe u-shaped? For the purpose of anchoring the chicken wire mesh of my fencing to the ground.

We've got a split-rail fence with chicken wire to keep Tomoe in and other animals out. If you have to fence your yard with this kind of fencing, as we do, then what you want to do is bury the bottom part of the chicken wire under the ground, preferably about 6 inches. But this is not the case for some portions of our fence.

I have no idea why she waited until she was nearly 2 1/2 years old to develop the technique, but Tomoe just two weeks ago realized that IN CASE OF DIRE EMERGENCY (deer or squirrels for example) she can push her head under the chicken wire. And then once her head is under, why not just push her whole body under there? Then she can take off into the Bigger Forbidden Yard and worry us sick.

She has done this THREE times in the last two weeks - so I need to secure ALL of the chicken wire in my yard now.

I was starting to remove and replace it, ready to spend a couple of weekends burying the chicken wire when a neighbor walked by and said I ought to be able to find something I can anchor the chicken wire with.

I checked Home Depot and they don't have what I am looking for this time of year. I am wondering if anybody has been down this path before and knows where I can get something useful? Thanks!

sukoshi_mom

If your fence is really chicken wire, it will be just a matter of time before she figures out how to chew through it. One of my Shibas chewed through the heavier, plastic covered wire without much difficulty. Heavy gauge ranch wire does seem to work however--they haven't chewed through that.

Don't know about the poles. You could try putting 12" wide footer boards at the bottom, and sink part of the board into the ground.

ayk

Chicken wire is really too soft to keep in a dog her size. Chicken wire does nothing to protect a chicken from a coyote/dog.

I like the ranch/hog wire depicted here and bent long-wise in half to form an "L":

http://www.inetdesign.com/wolfdunn/containment/hogwirepens.html

shishiinu

Yup been there done that with my kishus. Chicken wire is too soft and my dogs have chewed it through. What is your original fence made with? I ended up just having to use wooden dig eared boards to creat a fortress. I am now working on pouring concrete at the bottom of the fence so they can't crawle under.

BradA1878

For stakes I would get small gauge foot-long rebard and bend it in half. Then hammer it in. I've done that in several places.

We use no-climb horse wire and cattle gaurd on most of our fence. We also have a 4' wood privacy fence on the inside of most of the "high traffic" areas, it sandwiches the horse wire between it and the outer coyote fence.

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shibamistress

Yeah, it's unfortunate, but chicken wire is too soft. My fence is made of stock fencing (the heavier gauge type of fence like that linked above). We discovered that some of the fencing, though, has a big enough "holes" in it that little Miss Pinhead (aka Bel, the Shiba) could get her head through it....she was doing that one evening when she was attacked by coyotes and bit on both sides of the head). So we had to put chicken wire over the places in the fence where she could get her head through (thankfully the entire 1/2 acre wasnt fenced in with that kind of material!). She CAN push the chicken wire out of the way and has chewed on it, but since it's outside the regular fence (essentially two layers--stock fencing with chicken wire over it in a few places), she hasn't been able to make progress with it, and gave up.

Basic stock fencing material isn't expensive, though (we've had to buy a couple rolls to make the fence higher so our Akita can't get out of the low spots), and since you've already got the split rail fence, it will be pretty easy to replace the chicken wire with the stock fencing material (or better yet--leave it up, and put the other fencing over it so you have a double layer). It's also harder to push out of the way than chicken wire, so it MIGHT stop her from doing that, but if not, Brad's rebar idea would work.

Good luck--it's a pain to have to do this, but luckily, stock fencing is relatively inexpensive, and easy to put up, and it will make the fence much more secure. I just saw someone down the road do this--looks like they bought the house that only had a split rail, and they added the other layer to keep their dogs in, and it seems to be working well.

lindsayt

I have 6-8th cedar fence, with an inner layer of 4-5 ft buried horse fence and t posts. T posts sound like something you may find useful with chicken wire, are cheap, and are available at feed stores in large amounts.

I did tack a role of 2ft chicken wire along the inside bottom of the cedar fence in the chicken coop (which is enclosed by chicken wire). I layered large rocks on the bottom foot of the chicken wire instead of burying it, in the coop area. The chicken wire has been sufficient to keep the Shibas, and the CO out of coop. We will see if it works with the Kai as well.

Kenshi

Thanks guys.

I found a source for cheap galvanized steel tent stakes that are 9" long. I am going to try using those to anchor the wire mesh to the ground.

I am sure she will eventually find another way out - I am actually surprised she hasn't figured out how to jump or climb over the fence yet, and unless I am using the term "chicken wire" incorrectly, apparently NHK can chew through the stuff.

I was just watching her this morning and she was super busy sniffing around. Nose follows scent, head follows nose, shoulders follow head, etc. If the nose is blocked, the paws will kind of poke and grab at the obstacle. it is just interesting that this has been happening only recently. The only other times she has outright breached the fence it was because there was already some kind of break or opening at normal head level.

shishiinu

Taro has figured out how to jump on top of the fence and sit there to watch the neighborhood and howl every morning at 0600. I was afraid of him jumping over but all he does is sit there and watch so I don't even stop him any more.

ayk

Here's a picture of chicken wire:



Here's a picture of hardware cloth that's often used to predator-proof a chicken coop: