Nathan Piwowarski

Shane Gorter wrote:Nathan, it helps if you have more than one net for navigating around obstacles since you can usually line them up where two nets meet and open them around the tree. If I was to run my birds through my orchard I would probably reduce the paddock down to two nets and use the third net to set up the enclosed fresh ground and then open up the existing paddock into the new one and remove a net from the back. There are a lot of tricks to working with the electronet, but once you get the hand of it you wouldn't want anything else.

Shane, I completely agree. If I could only offer one tip to someone starting the PP system, it would be to buy multiple smaller lengths of electric net. It would be so much easier to move around. The cost difference is worth the reduced hassle.

The second tip would definitely be to use a spool of single line to run from a fixed energizer location to the moving paddocks, as described higher up in this thread.

And the third would probably be to build the movable enclosure in two half sizes. I move the enclosure by hand. Sometimes the skids on the bottom "run aground" in the weeds, or dig ruts in sandy soil. To reduce these difficulties, I am building two half-size mobile enclosures instead of one 4x8 enclosure (not that the 4x8 will be wasted--it'll make a great greenhouse for our starts simply by swapping the tarps for some plastic sheeting). I can move the 8x8, but it would be soooo much easier to move a 4x8, especially through thick weeds or sandy ground.

Shane Gorter wrote:To avoid some of the issues Nathan P. had with electronet I would recommend having your fencer in a centeralized location and buy one of those cheap quarter mile spools of fencing wire and some step-in insulated fense posts and run the power out to your nets vs moving the fencer and ground posts each time. As far as moving the electronet goes I do not pick up the entire thing and move it all at once, I spent way to much time chasing loose chickens. Instead what I do is I move my mobile coop each day and then shift the electronet onto new ground about 1/3rd of a paddock shift a day and I have a large paddock. I do this by moving a few posts at a time so that the net is always standing and there is no openings for the birds to escape out of.

Shane - These are great recommendations. I wish I would've thought of the spooled wire trick last year--it would definitely save a lot of trouble. I have had some success moving the fence a little at a time. If there are any trees in the paddock, or major changes in topography (as I have when my land dips toward the river), that strategy is limited.

Jeremey Weeks wrote:Awesome summary, Nathan. What breed of bird?

I used barred rocks and Rhode Island Reds. They served my purposes. I am considering freedom rangers for meat birds this year.

Last year, I grew my first flock of 24 dual-purpose birds using the methods recommended in Paul's article, http://www.richsoil.com/raising-chickens.jsp. I used 164-foot Premier1 electric net fencing with three different energizers. At night, I put them in a mobile enclosure made out of hog panels (much like this one: http://www.plamondon.com/hoop-coop.html).

Before offering constructive criticism, I believe that many of the results were as-promised:

The confinement factor was as-advertised. My birds were happy, at least based on my limited experience with them.

The meat and eggs were delicious, albeit smaller than store-bought.

The hygiene factor was as-advertised. Visitors marveled at the cleanliness of the paddock, and the lack of "that chicken smell."

This system visibly improved the quality of our lawn and a wasteland where there used to be a failed Christmas Tree plantation.

But I experienced some of the problems Darby identified in Jack's podcast:

For the work factor, the fencing was tough to move. I regularly tangled the net fencing, and it was rather heavy to move alone, or regularly. It would be much smarter to buy two or three smaller lengths of net fencing. I have often thought of suggesting that Paul include that advice in his article.

Predation was a big problem. I lost half of my birds to predators. I live near a river, and was using the chickens to improve the soil where I had removed a failed Scotch Pine plantation (meaning there was no cover other than the open coop/enclosure that I built using 2x4s and hog panels). Between the two, I had problems with weasels and owls. A lesser weasel can get around the net fence without missing a beat. I mitigated the problem by (a) moving the paddock far more often than my stocking density required, (b) being very mindful of locking the chickens into their moving enclosure at night (very helpful, but increases the human workload to more than 2 mins/week), and (c) aggressively securing the movable coop/enclosure (hardware mesh--effective but expensive). I know, I know, a livestock guardian dog would be enormously helpful. My spouse isn't up for another dog right now, so I consider it a design limitation that I need to work around.

Chalk it up to inexperience, but I had a tough time with shorted and inadequately-grounded fencing. I learned that one has to cut the grass low to prevent shorting the fence. And I had to buy a beefy, expensive energizer and long, impossible-to-remove ground poles to make the fence work. Count that as a strike against PP on the work factor.

Blame this on inexperience, too, but I was unprepared for the stage of development where the chicks should be outdoors, but are able to move right through the net fence. We had free-range chickens for a bit. Not the end of the world, but it necessitated an intermediary structure (I called them halfway houses).

If you're starting out with relatively poor soils and sward like me, you may not reduce your feed rates as much as expected. I saw this as an enjoyable way to yield eggs, meat, and soil, and not as a business enterprise. So it wasn't a big deal to me, but it could be for some. So PP's benefits on the vegetation factor and bug factor may be more modest than advertised, especially if you're just getting started.

Would I run birds another way? No (in fact, I'm going to ramp it up for meat birds this year). Some of the disappointing results resulted from my inexperience. Some of them could be mitigated by avoiding the mistakes I made. And I can live with the others. But if I only intended to have a handful of layers, and wasn't up for the expense and work associated with the net fencing, I'd consider a movable pen system instead.

Done!

Looks great. Done!

paul wheaton wrote:I am going to five days in Bozeman thing.

Are you going to the Detroit event, Paul?