Théo and the chickens des Sauches

[ManueB]

We are having two days of much needed heavy rain, after three weeks without.
(@Molpet I'm using that time having to stay inside to adapt the egg tracking spreadsheet file you pointed out to me. It's saving me quite some time from doing it all from nothing, so thank you a lot for that link !)

A lot of rain is no fun for the chickens, especially the two unwell hens, Cannelle and Blanche.
They are all sheltering in the coop and run, even Théo, who did not want to stay alone without Merle and Piou-piou. This is new for him, up to now he was too scared of Gaston and spent rain days under our lunch table. Indeed he was thrown out of the coop a few times, but now Gaston seems to be pretending he's not there.

Here are some pictures from yesterday.

Blanche is doing a bit better, though not significantly. She is eating a little of both commercial food and other things.

One of our older neighbour who's into planting brought us over a bunch of saplings : blackberries, two apple and two pear trees, and a dozen baby peach trees (none have ever survived here so hopefully this time, at least one will. He says we imperatively need to treat them with "bouillie bordelaise", that's a very diluted copper sulfate and lime mix).

As always when we do thing in the soil the chickens love it.

Cannelle liked the waterer especially.

 

[Molpet]

We are having two days of much needed heavy rain, after three weeks without.
(@Molpet I'm using that time having to stay inside to adapt the egg tracking spreadsheet file you pointed out to me. It's saving me quite some time from doing it all from nothing, so thank you a lot for that link !)

A lot of rain is no fun for the chickens, especially the two unwell hens, Cannelle and Blanche.
They are all sheltering in the coop and run, even Théo, who did not want to stay alone without Merle and Piou-piou. This is new for him, up to now he was too scared of Gaston and spent rain days under our lunch table. Indeed he was thrown out of the coop a few times, but now Gaston seems to be pretending he's not there.

Here are some pictures from yesterday.

View attachment 3744051
Blanche is doing a bit better, though not significantly. She is eating a little of both commercial food and other things.
View attachment 3744052
One of our older neighbour who's into planting brought us over a bunch of saplings : blackberries, two apple and two pear trees, and a dozen baby peach trees (none have ever survived here so hopefully this time, at least one will. He says we imperatively need to treat them with "bouillie bordelaise", that's a very diluted copper sulfate and lime mix).

As always when we do thing in the soil the chickens love it.
View attachment 3744054
Cannelle liked the waterer especially.
View attachment 3744053

Glad the link helped

 

[ManueB]

I've begun looking at prices for nettings, in the eventuality of using it around the vegetable gardens and I'm a bit discouraged. I knew the costs had gone way up since I bought the ones we have that are not electrifiable a few years ago. I wasn't expecting how much.

The price I have found for 50 meters of electrifiable netting range from 150 to 190 euros ( that's 160-200$ for 165 feet). If I only quote the whole perimeter, not separating the three gardens which would require more length, that means between 900 and 1140€, just for the nets : still have to add the battery and solar captor.
Doing the same length with mesh fencing would cost us 150 to 200 € (we dont pay the poles and one of our neighbour sells mesh, so we get good prices).

I can't seem to find netting either longer than 50 meters, or sold by custom length.
@RoyalChick , how did you buy yours, and were the prices coherent with those ?
It seems the poultry nets are mostly made in Germany and Belgium which maybe explains the higher costs ? The mesh we buy comes from Italy.

 

[RoyalChick]

I've begun looking at prices for nettings, in the eventuality of using it around the vegetable gardens and I'm a bit discouraged. I knew the costs had gone way up since I bought the ones we have that are not electrifiable a few years ago. I wasn't expecting how much.

The price I have found for 50 meters of electrifiable netting range from 150 to 190 euros ( that's 160-200$ for 165 feet). If I only quote the whole perimeter, not separating the three gardens which would require more length, that means between 900 and 1140€, just for the nets : still have to add the battery and solar captor.
Doing the same length with mesh fencing would cost us 150 to 200 € (we dont pay the poles and one of our neighbour sells mesh, so we get good prices).

I can't seem to find netting either longer than 50 meters, or sold by custom length.
@RoyalChick , how did you buy yours, and were the prices coherent with those ?
It seems the poultry nets are mostly made in Germany and Belgium which maybe explains the higher costs ? The mesh we buy comes from Italy.

I have been looking for the receipt for mine but can’t find it. However I do remember roughly.
The solar energizer was about $100 - it included the solar panel and the battery but not connecting wire. A non-solar one was a lot cheaper but complicated in my set-up.
You cannot really customize your own lengths because all the strands need to come together to one electrical connection. Not impossible to do but fiddly. I didn’t find anyone selling custom lengths. The only differences were the number of wires and how tall. In retrospect I wish I had gone for the shorter fence. There is one designed for hogs that is less than a meter high. The chickens can fly over even the taller one, but they tend not to because they really prefer to fly up onto something and then down the other side and this isn’t attractive to fly up on top of because it is loose and wobbly like string. In my case I wish I got the shorter one because it would also make it easier for them to fly home again, and I think the foxes also could jump right over but would tend not to particularly if trained to recognize the fence.
Anyway, the one I got came in 50m (164’) and 25m (82’) lengths. And the long one sells now for $200. It comes with the posts integrated into the net so that isn’t an extra cost - although I did get a handful of extra posts to handle the tricky parts of my hill.
This is not the company I got mine from - but here this appears to be the market leader and they have the best information and training videos. The company I got my netting from was slightly cheaper but not massively so.
It is a non trivial investment but so far I have been very happy with it. It is a bit alarming watching them learn the fence and little chicks can run right through the gaps without even noticing!
https://www.premier1supplies.com/fencing.php?fence_id=96

I had another thought for you that would be cheaper but would not deter the hog. And that is deer netting. It is black and barely visible from a couple of meters away. You can get what are called step-in posts (they also work for electric fences) so you can put them up and take them down very easily. The netting cuts with scissors.
Here is a link to the posts (I got mine on Amazon where they were cheaper)
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/american-farmworks-4-ft-black-step-in-fence-post

And this is deer netting
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/p...e-177-in-x-197-in-mesh-330-ft-length-1a120244

I use this a lot to protect new plants from chickens and trees from deer during buck run season.
The hogs however will just bulldoze through it!

Sorry for the long post. I hope it is somewhat helpful. And I do recommend watching some of the PremierOne videos to learn about electric fences.

 

[BDutch]

On a Dutch website I see lower prices for poultry netting:
https://www.agrishop.nl/voss-farmin...-dubbele-punt-pluimveenet-schrikdraadnet.html
I selected 2 that looks initially the same with the higher and lower price. The higher priced has more supplements, better and more poles. I gather the netting itself is the same.

This agri shop also sells stuff to electrify and solar solutions.
https://www.agrishop.nl/voss-farmin...-met-12v-gel-accu-en-12-watt-zonnepaneel.html

 

[ManueB]

I have been looking for the receipt for mine but can’t find it. However I do remember roughly.
The solar energizer was about $100 - it included the solar panel and the battery but not connecting wire. A non-solar one was a lot cheaper but complicated in my set-up.
You cannot really customize your own lengths because all the strands need to come together to one electrical connection. Not impossible to do but fiddly. I didn’t find anyone selling custom lengths. The only differences were the number of wires and how tall. In retrospect I wish I had gone for the shorter fence. There is one designed for hogs that is less than a meter high. The chickens can fly over even the taller one, but they tend not to because they really prefer to fly up onto something and then down the other side and this isn’t attractive to fly up on top of because it is loose and wobbly like string. In my case I wish I got the shorter one because it would also make it easier for them to fly home again, and I think the foxes also could jump right over but would tend not to particularly if trained to recognize the fence.
Anyway, the one I got came in 50m (164’) and 25m (82’) lengths. And the long one sells now for $200. It comes with the posts integrated into the net so that isn’t an extra cost - although I did get a handful of extra posts to handle the tricky parts of my hill.
This is not the company I got mine from - but here this appears to be the market leader and they have the best information and training videos. The company I got my netting from was slightly cheaper but not massively so.
It is a non trivial investment but so far I have been very happy with it. It is a bit alarming watching them learn the fence and little chicks can run right through the gaps without even noticing!
https://www.premier1supplies.com/fencing.php?fence_id=96

I had another thought for you that would be cheaper but would not deter the hog. And that is deer netting. It is black and barely visible from a couple of meters away. You can get what are called step-in posts (they also work for electric fences) so you can put them up and take them down very easily. The netting cuts with scissors.
Here is a link to the posts (I got mine on Amazon where they were cheaper)
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/american-farmworks-4-ft-black-step-in-fence-post

And this is deer netting
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/p...e-177-in-x-197-in-mesh-330-ft-length-1a120244

I use this a lot to protect new plants from chickens and trees from deer during buck run season.
The hogs however will just bulldoze through it!

Sorry for the long post. I hope it is somewhat helpful. And I do recommend watching some of the PremierOne videos to learn about electric fences.

Thank you for taking the time to post all that information!
For my chickens the situation would be a bit different. They would have to "unlearn" what they already know with the same netting without electricity. They know how to fly over it and four of them know how to search for a looser part on the bottom and crawl under it.

The deer netting is very similar to what we use to protect smaller specific zones, olive netting, and it would probably have the same issue. It is woven small enough that it catches strong wind, and that's really a problem here. And the chickens would also be able to crawl under it.

View attachment 3745305On a Dutch website I see lower prices for poultry netting:
https://www.agrishop.nl/voss-farmin...-dubbele-punt-pluimveenet-schrikdraadnet.html
I selected 2 that looks initially the same with the higher and lower price. The higher priced has more supplements, better and more poles. I gather the netting itself is the same.
View attachment 3745306
This agri shop also sells stuff to electrify and solar solutions.
https://www.agrishop.nl/voss-farmin...-met-12v-gel-accu-en-12-watt-zonnepaneel.html

That is one of the brand I found sold here. But the "classic" is not the electrifiable version of the netting, I would need to get the "farm net" or the "farming" which are more expensive.

Spending around 1200 euros on something that I'm not sure will work is not possible for me. However, I thought about it last night while I couldn't sleep and I had another idea. It's difficult to explain without a drawing, instead of surrounding the whole gardens perimeter I could try what we did last year with unelectrified netting which was to just put a line of vertical netting between the chicken yard and the gardens. It did not work then, but maybe electrifying would make a difference. I would only need 75 meters of netting instead of 300m, so I think the cost could be kept under 500 euros.

 

[MaryJanet]

Thank you for taking the time to post all that information!
For my chickens the situation would be a bit different. They would have to "unlearn" what they already know with the same netting without electricity. They know how to fly over it and four of them know how to search for a looser part on the bottom and crawl under it.

The deer netting is very similar to what we use to protect smaller specific zones, olive netting, and it would probably have the same issue. It is woven small enough that it catches strong wind, and that's really a problem here. And the chickens would also be able to crawl under it.


That is one of the brand I found sold here. But the "classic" is not the electrifiable version of the netting, I would need to get the "farm net" or the "farming" which are more expensive.

Spending around 1200 euros on something that I'm not sure will work is not possible for me. However, I thought about it last night while I couldn't sleep and I had another idea. It's difficult to explain without a drawing, instead of surrounding the whole gardens perimeter I could try what we did last year with unelectrified netting which was to just put a line of vertical netting between the chicken yard and the gardens. It did not work then, but maybe electrifying would make a difference. I would only need 75 meters of netting instead of 300m, so I think the cost could be kept under 500 euros.

That seems like it's worth a try.

 

[BDutch]

That is one of the brand I found sold here. But the "classic" is not the electrifiable version of the netting, I would need to get the "farm net" or the "farming" which are more expensive.

They have similar netting with a label not electrifiable. I strongly believe this classic one is electrifiable. Checked: It is labelled with schrikdraadnet meaning netting its electrifiable.

Maybe is also possible to buy electrifiable cord and combine it with your neighbours mesh fencing? My neighbours have woven two flat electric cords through the netting they have set up for the mini pig. 1 low near the ground and one near the top.

This is the one zonder stroom meaning it is not electrifiable:

 

[ManueB]

They have similar netting with a label not electrifiable. I strongly believe this classic one is electrifiable. Checked: It is labelled with schrikdraadnet meaning netting its electrifiable.

Maybe is also possible to buy electrifiable cord and combine it with your neighbours mesh fencing? My neighbours have woven two flat electric cords through the netting they have set up for the mini pig. 1 low near the ground and one near the top.

This is the one zonder stroom meaning it is not electrifiable:
View attachment 3745346

You're quite right ! It wasn't mentioned as electrifiable on the main page of the site where I found it, so I didn't even look at it. But it is, and it's a bit cheaper than the other versions. I do think more poles is a requirement for my chickens who are skilled at crawling under netting ; the less poles there are and the easier it is for them to find a place where the netting is slack.
If I only buy 75 meters the netting won't cost that much, but the battery and solar captor kit still cost around 350 to 400 euros so I'm not sure it's worth trying to electrify the netting I already have. The electrified nettings they sell have 11 electrified strings out of 12, if I only put two or three I have doubts it would work as well.
*********
We had two chicken drama episodes yesterday. The first was more of a gardening mishap ; we hadn't seen it before but it actually happened on Thursday. I had noticed Lilly jumped/flew in a small ash tree that's in a corner of their yard, which was a first for any chicken, to escape Théo trying to mate her. Doing so, we discovered yesterday she had destroyed the graft my partner did on the small cherry tree. He was terribly upset this morning when he saw it it and started shouting and swearing at the whole world that he was going to eat chicken stew every Sunday until they were all dead. That terrified the chickens, who are maybe quite used to hear me shout, but have never seen him do so. He never raises his voice around them. Gaston started making alarm calls and bringing everyone inside the coop and it took quite a bit to convince them he was not actually going to kill one.
You would not think it worth it to get upset for that, but my partner is very keen on grafting both at the right day for the moon and also just when the trees are beginning to bud so that the sap is flowing, so now he can't. It's all a bit of hocus pocus for me to be honest but I could see he was very unhappy.

Later in the afternoon, I was sitting on the bench in front of the house, cleaning a very unwell Cannelle's butt. I asked my partner to hold her because I needed both hands for cleaning all the yucky clumps, when we saw a few meters away a big grey raptor swooping down on our chickens that were just going out in the garden ...and landing more particularly right next to Piou-piou.
I held Cannelle and my partner started running and screaming ; the raptor flew off right away. It's the biggest bird that has landed yet to try to take a chicken, I think (the eagles have come near, but never actually landed) ; a lot smaller than an eagle, but maybe 90 cm to one meter of wingspan. Not sure what it was, possibly a peregrine falcon / duck hawk for the size, but we didn't see any barring.
Piou-piou was very worried, she survived the fox attack and now this. She stayed under cover for the rest of the afternoon and headed straight to her roost when she came out of the laurel tree. I made her eat and drink from the roost and she didn't seem too shocked.

@lightm how is Honey doing ?


Not a chicken obviously. For once yesterday the old horse Gribouille wasn't hanging out with the cows at the hay feeder so he came to see me. He has gotten very white in the last months. Amelia leaves the cows and him free to decide if they want to shelter or not in bad weather and apparently they stayed outside throughout the whole days of rain.

We got a bit of snows on the peaks above 1800 m. And 70 ml of rain which is not bad at all.

Théo has got his hormones raging. He is being a pain with the hens. I wonder if it would be worth it to trim his spurs and nails again.

His posture of fright when he sees Gaston.

Cannelle has had two very bad days during the rain. Yesterday she was slightly better. She stayed with us for lunch and ate small pieces of bread... and salted pork belly fat .

Piou-piou before the raptor's visit.

The three ex-batts stayed a bit in the sun together.

 

[BDutch]

If I only buy 75 meters the netting won't cost that much, but the battery and solar captor kit still cost around 350 to 400 euros so I'm not sure it's worth trying to electrify the netting I already have. The electrified nettings they sell have 11 electrified strings out of 12, if I only put two or three I have doubts it would work as well.

It doesnt have to be that expensive.

This compact solar kit costs € 210 and is large enough your purpose.
https://www.agrishop.nl/voss-farmin...chrikdraadapparaat-complete-set-met-accu.html
(Scroll down for the specs and translate. )
And this one , €140 , even might be okay too?
https://www.agrishop.nl/voss-farmin...chrikdraadapparaat-complete-set-met-accu.html

Or maybe its possible to make a 12V line from the house? A complete 50 m set with netting but without solar costs 250 €:
https://www.agrishop.nl/voss-farmin...chrikdraadapparaat-complete-set-met-accu.html

The device to add electricity to netting or wire only costs € 115 for 3 km with light growth of plants
https://www.agrishop.nl/voss-farmin...chrikdraadapparaat-3-0-joule-12-000-volt.html

A few photos of the setup my neighbours made for their mini pig.

The solar charger with accu.

They recently made the area smaller and doubled the wire in the netting. It worked good for about 50 meters with 3 electric lines woven into the netting.

Grounding