Chickens Update

Finally, through only partial fault of my own, the chickens are outdoors... Now, the explination:

Yesterday I erected what was intended to be a temporary enclosure for the chickens. I didn't have nearly as much wire as I had thought, and had to improvise a coop for them... After several near escapes I thought I had the birds contained, and left for game night...
I was wrong...

When I came home at 1:00 the first thing I saw when I pulled in was what looked like a dead chicken. Fortunately it was still alive, but very VERY far from where it belonged. It turns out that it and one more bird had ran right under the electrified chicken wire. About an hour later, just as I was getting to bed, I heard a lot of commotion outside, and when I went out with my flashlight... NO CHICKENS!!!

The next morning after I got up I looked around and, sure enough in the pine trees on the north edge of my property I found five of the birds in short order. Soon thereafter I found the rooster in another pine tree by himself. After reuniting him with the hens I left for Tractor Supply to get supplies to make a much larger run for the birds. Here are the results:
The run is about 50 feet long and 15 wide. The chicken wire is topped with an electrified security wire, and the base is surrounded by a second electrified wire. Both wires are energized with a 6,000 volt pulse once every second, which (according to the fencer manufacturer) is enough to control all predators and livestock as large as bison! This fencer is rather overkill for my purposes, but it is a "weed clipper" unit, which means that it has enough power to literally "burn through" weeds. This is both good and bad: Good in the respect that out-of-control spring weeds won't negate the fence, but bad in the respect that the unit is more than capable of starting brush fires in dry weather... I plan on adding a seperate cut-out for the bottom wire, so I can turn it off during drought and red-flag warnings.
This fence was not as cheap as I had thought: All told it cost about $250-300 (mind you I had bought most of the electric fence parts three years ago, which accounts for just less than half of the total). This is the main reason for my advocacy of electric fencing: For what I spent on a 200-foot chicken fence I could've built a 5 mile cattle fence using a purely electric fence. The other reason is that electric fencing is very humane compared to the alternatives (such as barbed wire). The shock is rather painful (as I found out while testing the fence), but causes no actual harm to the animal. Barbed wire, on the other hand...

Now for some pictures...

My custom indoor electric fence energizer setup. It features a Zareba Systems 1/4 joule battery-powered controller currently running off of the battery from my big truck (which is currently out of commision). I printed off the "High Voltage" signs myself.













Four pullets enjoying the evening beside on of my pine trees.












And the Mighty (in his own opinion) Rooster... When the birds escaped last night he had picked his own tree to hide out in, and unlike the hens had actually climbed up into the tree to roost. His wings were the first to be clipped, so I doubt if his tree climbing prowess will be a problem...