Fences

[DocAlgae]

What would you recommend as a fence for my lottie?  According to the old boys I've been talking to, there is a variety of wildlife on site including the bunnies, mice, moles, foxes and Muntjac.  Most lotties have chicken wire round em.  Does anyone have any ideas for a cheap way of fencing my plot?

[DocAlgae]

[Chantenay]

If you have rabbits, then chicken wire, dug in at least nine inches, and then bent outwards into the bottom of the dug trench should keep them at bay. Countrywide farmers store seems to do the cheapest I have found (Midlands) (around £25 for 50m) and cheap posts. Get the smaller size holes - baby bunnies can get through the larger ones. And if you strim, keep well away from your wire - I made the mistake of not noticing I had strimmed a hole in the wire - but the rabbits noticed!!!

[Plottie]

Hi Doc
Have only just seen this message and thought I'd pass on this advice re bunnies. When we took on our plot earlier this year we were advised that the rabbits could burrow (obviously) so I would agree that your chicken wire should be buried and be of the type with small holes to deter the babies. But we were also told that the monsters can jump amazingly high so we've built our fences to about twice the height we would otherwise have done - ours are about 5ft high so hopefully will do the trick. As it's more expensive this way it's worth trying to find a local agricultural suppliers rather than to use a garden centre to buy your wire. We were given the name of a place we hadn't heard of by a friendly allotment neighbour so ask around.
best of luck
Plottie :)

[Chantenay]

Well said Plottie - I forgot height and you are absolutely right. I also forgot to mention the mole issue. We started to have trouble a year ago, and I bought one of those battery sonic mole jobbies in a french supermarket. Don't know whether it's playing the can-can or what, but they have definitely moved away. You can get the same thing here - I noticed them in a local pound-type shop, and the price is getting down to a tenner (about £8 if you happen to be over in France).

[ina]

Hi DocA, it's now the third year since rabbits invaded our lottie complex and our fencing kept them out 100% and not very hard work to put up either.

Get chickenwire with small holes, 1 meter tall. No need to dig deep, just scrape about 5cm deep and 20cm wide of the soil off. Put the top 80cm of the wire up and fold the bottom 20cm outwards, flat in the shallow ditch. Put soil back in the ditch, on top of the folded out chicken wire, stomp it down and voila.

After the first two days, rabbits tried to dig under the fence in 11 places but hit the chickenwire instead. The fencing also got dented in several places. Since then, no more attempts and none ever came in. Five feet tall fencing seems a bit much and will make your lottie look even more like a prison camp as mine does with 75-80cm tall fencing.

Good luck.

[Plottie]

I'd rather have the prison camp look than the rabbits, Ina!
Plottie

[ina]

"!"........?

[derbex]

I second Ina on fencing, we have lots of rabbits there are burrows within a few feet of my fence -entrances within inches!

I dug a shallow trench bent over the bottom 6" of chicken wire and covered it with the sods (turves rather than rabbits :) ). You let the grass grow into the fence a bit to complete things. It has worked 100% so far -and I haven't had to duck any flying rabbits. I used 90cm fencing with a 1" mesh spacing -medium, there is a very small one as well as a 2" or so.

One tip I did read somewhere is to leave an old plank, or the like, propped up at a shallow angle against the top of your fence from the inside, so that if rabbits do get in they can get out again -don't know if it works.

Jeremy

Here are a couple of good sites

http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/regulat/forms/cons_man/vertpest/wm16.pdf

http://handbooks.btcv.org.uk/handbooks/index/book/109

[ina]

Derbex, thanks for the link, especially the first one I found very helpful. It was nice to see confirmed what we did three years ago but then again, not having rabbit damage was actually proof enough. I think it was on the beeb board where I first read this method so I can't take the credit for it.

Instead of a plank on the inside to let a possible super rabbit that did get in out again, I have a step-up type thingy which I also need to get in and out. 80cm is just a bit too high for comfort for me to step over.

[derbex]

Hi Ina, I did consider just stepping over mine (I'm quite tall), but in the end my wife persuaded me to put in a removeable panel (well she wanted a gate, and it may become one one day ;D). Much better when you want to use a wheelbarrow in and out.

Jeremy