R Spencer

I have a very small flock of chickens, 3 to 10 birds range. They're in a secure chicken tractor type of coup that over summer we tow around and let them free range with an automatic, light-activated door. When grass isn't growing or we're away, we have a paddock full of hay, compost, and perches for them in an area out of the wind. To enclose this paddock and keep chickens safe during the day, we put up a 6' fence using 8' T-posts and 6' 2x4" welded wire fencing. Thing is, chickens just keep flying over that fencing. We added chicken wire extension 2' on top of the existing fence, but the chickens roost on a T-post or top of the welded wire, then manage to fly over the chicken wire. We are determined to keep the chickens in this paddock when we want them in, as when they let themselves out freely they end up 1) exposed to foxes and 2) eating where they shouldn't, like in our lawn-to-meadow conversion areas and eating vinyl labels for plants. The plastic eating is a real frustration and we're phasing out those labels but still have many in our tree nursery area.

To improve this paddock's fencing, I am thinking to run a single wire (I have 14ga galvanized wire for another project) up along the top of the 6' T-posts on the interior of the paddock, and energize it with a solar/battery fence charger. Here's an example charger I was looking at: https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/american-farmworks-2-mile-solar-fence-energizer-esp2mn-afw

The whole paddock is small, about 70ft perimeter and apx. 400sqft.

Electric fencing seems like a big project to add on to this setup but I imagine once we start using it, it's actually pretty simple. We're just new to it. And it seems like the simplest way to try to keep chickens in this paddock, but I'm not sure it will work - could they just avoid touching it and get atop a T-post anyway, or touch the wire but not be affected by it like mammals would be? I don't want to energize the entire 6' welded wire fence as we handle it to go in and out of the paddock daily.

If this doesn't sound good, any other ideas? My other idea is covering the entire top of the paddock with chicken wire. Again it's not that big of an area. But that would be hundreds of dollars of chicken wire, I'd need some support posts in the middle to keep it from sagging too much, and I imagine it'll open other cans of worms I'm not thinking of (like debris piling up on top, or harder to keep the paddock wall and ceiling 'sealed').

Let me start by saying, I am not chemical-phobic and am an enthusiast on the subject, but my lifelong interest in chemistry has morphed into the curse of concern about plastics, metals, and all kinds of wacky additives (such as PFAS) we add to the built environment. I don't want long-term harm to myself, family, or habitat if I can avoid it.

This question is about safety of fencing materials around the garden.

Here's the current situation:
When I moved to my current home there was an old dog fenced area in the backyard right off the house, and we went ahead and started gardening there. A few years in, our garden is intensifying in that area really nicely, we now have an infant, the fence is decaying, and deer are hopping over it decimating the garden. We decided we need a deer fence, ideally 8ft tall, and will make it "3D" over time too (plants on either side for rougher landing, plants or woven material on the fence to reduce visibility).

In an ideal world, I'd replace the old fence with a nice new one made with local cedar or black locust or osage posts, and I'd weave dried bamboo or willows or hazels or inert metal through the posts to get 8ft of deer fence, and/or the whole thing turn into a living hedge over time. The problem is, I've looked around a lot and cannot even find 8ft cedar or locust posts in my area, nonetheless 10-12ft needed for 8ft high fence. Plus time is tight! And it's expensive to ship from afar or hire pros.

As growing season approaches, we decided the best option is to get T-posts (10ft if possible, or settle for 8ft and add sticks or bamboo for more height). The most economical option (in time and $) seems like running fence wire along that, maybe every 2ft high, and adding flagging to deter deer.

Now for my concern about safety in the garden. The current situation is not great to start. The current fence posts are clearly pressure treated. Some are looser or more decayed than others but overall they're doing okay and would be a (doable) pain to remove. Many have a green tinge, some strongly, whether that's moss or PT. Some were painted and the paint is flaking off. From satellite photos these appear installed between 2005-2012, probably between 2010-2012, so the PT posts are probably benign. The metal fence was coated in something, I guess vinyl, which is now decaying and flaking off. The metal itself is rusting. My concern is mainly the plastics (throughout fence) and paint (near gates) peeling off and whatever those flakes and dust risk for our garden soils, food grown right under that fence (within what distance?), and my soon-to-be toddling child exploring it.

And there's the question of what materials/contaminants we'll add. For good and bad, I feel a lot of responsibility when bringing in new materials to the site ~ what will be their long term fate? If we go with T-posts, the ones I'm shopping are made in USA with rolled steel and oven-baked water-based enamel. I am certain the enamel will chip off into the garden over time, just pounding T-posts releases minuscule amounts of that. For wire, options are either galvanized steel or aluminum. Galvanized metal has been noted for releasing lead - small amounts and some folks are fine with it in contact with food for sieves etc., while others avoid it as even chicken fencing. We already have lots of galvanized fencing around our chickens and yard, including the plastic-coated dog fence in question. Aluminum seems benign but others think it's not if acid rain is an issue, releasing aluminum which may be a health hazard. We do get acid rain here, worse in the past but that may come back if American steel makes a come back.

At this point I'm pretty sure these T-posts and galvanized wire is a reasonable option, and the existing fence may as well be left up as long as it'll stand and cover the first 4ft of fencing. I figure the old fence has done whatever harm to soil (and thus plants and us) as it will, and removing it will hasten the release of whatever is left to flake off. The new fence probably introduces some contaminants - water-based enamel, lead and whatever else from galvanized wire - but in minuscule amounts. Maybe we just skip eating from adjacent to the fence the first X years, or only grow A,B,C plants that don't uptake that stuff as readily (e.g., fruiting vines vs. eating groundnuts).

Do you have a way of looking at this or similar situations that could help me out? Any specific tips here, about materials or how we relate to the fence and garden to minimize harm? Like what could we plant there to avoid uptaking toxins, or what to plant to uptake toxins and then what do we do with that plant material? The built environment is fraught with these types of issues if you let it concern you. I'm trying to balance reasonable minimizing harm with the reality that 1) one can only do so much and 2) stress is probably much more harmful than microplastics or a little lead in one's gardens. Harder not to stress it now that I've got a little monkey finding their bearings!

Jay Angler wrote:Yes, they have been coppicing for firewood in places for over a thousand years, so finding good locally adapted plants for that approach makes a huge amount of sense. ( Coppice Agroforestry by Mark Krawczyk : review here https://permies.com/wiki/203188/Coppice-Agroforestry-Tending-Trees-Product )

I'll also suggest that people know the ecosystem requirements of trees - some will hog water to get that excellent growth, which then denies water to native, locally adapted trees.

And please don't plant monocultures - most coppiced areas use more than one species, and only chop relatively small areas on any one year, and have been shown to improve diversity of birds and amphibians, whereas monocultures tend to reduce biodiversity.

Coppice Agroforestry is a great reference for this. It builds on data presented in Edible Forest Gardens textbooks.

Personally I am planting hazels, hybrid poplars, Chinese chestnuts and chinquapin chestnuts, black locusts, and Osage orange. These are not all only for firewood but most of them are intended for resprout-forestry and firewood eventually. Especially the seedling hazelnuts, locust, and Osage orange - what isn't usable for garden construction will go to wood stoves.

Fair enough, I guess I'm underestimating the harm that even clay ammo in a slingshot can cause.

Jeff Lindsey wrote:Ok, some more on slingshots.

Cans hung from trees and lined up on boards, IMHO, make the best targets. It is simple and cheap and traditional for a reason. The feedback from the ammo hitting the can is instructive and fun. You will probably be shooting at things on the ground, below your normal line of sight, and things higher than your normal line of sight, so practice those shots. Shooting down is always tricky. When you get good, have someone toss the cans up for you. You can get good enough to hit those.

After a while, don't buy ammo packaged as such, except the clay stuff for use when you can't recover your ammo. It is too easy. Scrounge it. Go to good riverbeds and beaches to find smooth round rocks, find marbles and ball bearings in thrift stores, cast your own .50 caliber lead balls for the serious shots. If you value your ammo like a poor kid values their ammo, you will shoot with more care and you will have more fun as the ammo sourcing becomes part of the process. Paint balls can be shot, with all sorts of effects, but you can't squeeze the pouch hard.

Keep the clay, marbles, and ball bearings to the inanimate objects.  If you are ending varmints larger than mice, the animals deserves the clean kill of a heavy lead ball or a heavy steel hex nut shot vertically at short range, not a broken bone or a slow death from internal injuries because you have some fear of lead. Wear a  thin glove if you must.  Don't shoot birds at all unless you mean to kill them, a marble or even a bb can maim their fragile bodies. I have seen with my own eyes a turkey's breast plate stop bird shot. I have also seen turkey's  tragically blinded by bb shot and turkeys trying to survive with a broken wing.  Either kill the bird or use a method to scare it away. Don't wound animals.

Inspect your bands before every practice session, paying special attention to the ends of the tubes on wrist rockets. Cracked tubes at those points, on the sling or pouch, are the main points of failure.

Wear eye protection. It only takes one little failure of a bit of rubber to ruin your eye. It is really the only danger, except shooting your own hand that is supporting the slingshot. Just wear a pair of safety glasses.

There's a lot of options for carrying ammo. A small Crown Royal bag was the cool thing in 1985, and anything cool then is magically cool in these lesser times. I personally believe that a green Crown Royale bag gives you a +1 to hit, but your mileage may vary. Cigar tubes are the best paintball carriers if you are packing these discreetly.

For the real sling, paracord works as well, if not better, than natural fiber rope. Leather remains the best choice for pouches. River rocks and old billiard balls are your easily sourced ammo for these slings. You can fit 4 billiard balls in a 1980's era army surplus M16 magazine pouch and still close the pouch securely, in case you were wondering.

Happy slinging again.

What do you think of using a slingshot with clay ammo to scare away deer? I am thinking the ammo would be pretty harmless, not causing lasting injury, but enough of a surprise to be touched by it that they would start to get less comfortable around that area (they're starting to come closer and closer to home and garden, even over fences they didn't used to cross)

Thanks everyone. Sounds good to use it in a test bed or two, seeing how beans grow in it. I'll go ahead and try that! I guess if the beans grow well, I'll take that as a good sign to enjoy the beans and keep working with the soil.

I moved to my current place a couple of years ago and it had one previous owner, who's relatives built the place for them. It includes a cinderblock barn with wood rafters and a metal roof, a great outbuilding they used for horses. They stopped keeping horses years before selling, but the barn has been left more or less as-is, except we can see the wooden stalls they had attached to the walls within the barn were removed at some point.

The floor of the barn is just soil, uneven and built up toward the back where the horse stalls would've been. We want to put floors into part of it and will be excavating and leveling out the soil that's there. What can I do with this fill? There are some garden beds I'd be happy to build up with it, but I'm wondering about its safety.

Is there anything I should be concerned about, or any ways to test it for contaminants, before plopping it onto garden beds? We try to grow organic equivalent but are just growing for home and neighbors, not commercially organic. I am pretty paranoid about paint, plastic junk, livestock pharmaceuticals, etc. But it seems like after 5-10 or more years, pharmaceuticals from horses would degrade into less worrisome compounds, and I have no reason to believe the building itself would contaminate this soil given its made out of such inert materials. There's some plastic junk in the soil here and there but even premium organic compost ends up having microlitter in it.

What do you think?

It seems like 16oz canvas might be the best starting point, considering sheets and whatnot are just so thin.

I'm trying to decide between:

- untreated canvas which tends to be thinner and certainly not as weather resistant. Here's an example, maybe I could DIY making it into oilcloth with more natural 'treatment' using beeswax or natural oils https://www.chicagocanvas.com/product/10oz-untreated-natural-canvas-tarps/

- treated 16oz canvas which has unidentified oils and wax for weather resistance: https://www.chicagocanvas.com/product/16-oz-canvas-tarpaulins/ I could ask what oil and wax is used but undoubtedly it's petroleum-derived

This is just for an over-chicken hoop house, nothing too major, but ultimately what I put there will make its way to soil, grass, bugs, chickens, my community and my compost.

We all use tarps, right? Right now, I want to at least partially moderate sun, rain, and wind for part of a chicken run to give more 'outdoor living room space' for the chickens (their truly indoor area is on the small side). Well, like most tarp uses, I know if I slap a woven plastic tarp on there, I will put micro-litter all over the place within just a few years. Birds will nest in it, mowers will mow it, before long I will probably eat it. I don't want to eat plastic. I want something I can reuse or compost, or at least let biodegrade in a wood pile over decades, that will be non-toxic. And during its usable life, I want to pin it to a hardware-cloth hoop house that chickens shelter under, in zone 6ish mild winters and hot and sunny summers.

What do you use for tarps that balances being strictly not toxic gick with being relatively functional and relatively affordable?

Painters canvas seems very affordable and mildly functional. More than a 100% cotton bed sheet from the thrift store, in that it is a little thicker (I guess? I don't know much technical details about all these fibers).

Waxed canvas seems far more waterproof and durable, but is also hundreds of dollars more. It seems like I could buy many generations of painters canvas tarps for the price of one high-quality beeswax 'duck canvas' like those used for primitive camping.

Fleece tarps, to put over compost piles, is something I just learned about. This sounds promising. I am in the northeast USA and it would be great to support regional wool markets. Maybe this makes sense but I'm just guessing as to how nice a fleece tarp is for chickens seeking drier, shadier space out of the wind.

Any other ideas? Any votes for or against the above ideas? Thank you!

We'll certainly be using clothes lines. The question is more about getting a washer.

Thanks for the replies everyone! Speed Queen sounds good. The ones I'm finding are actually more expensive than even HE washers from other brands like Whirlpool or Maytag. I'll keep looking.