article & photos by Bruce Ingram
Because we began raising chickens in 2010, my wife, Elaine (pictured), and I have understood the necessity of positioning netting over our two chicken runs. And the type of netting, it seems, that we — and many chickenkeepers — buy is the so-called “lightweight bird” variety. This kind is often placed over fruit trees ripe with berries in order to ward off avian visitors.
This is the netting our local feed-supply store carries, so that was the kind we stretched across our runs. Over the years, it performed reasonably well, keeping at bay the great-horned, barred and screech owls that are native to where we live in southwest Virginia, as well as the red-tailed, broadwinged, sharp-shinned and Cooper’s hawks.