Coyotes and Fencing opinions

[EddieWalker]

I'm still clearing my land for my fence, but it's raining today and I'm taking the day off, so I'm researching ways to keep coyotes out of my land. The most common way that I've been told is to install a predator fence on the ground outside my fence and tie it together like shown in this picture.



The problem that I have with this is that I have to put my fence inside my land 3 feet, or whatever the size of the fence is that's flat on the ground. That's really not that much in the grand scheme of things, but I really hate the idea of doing it. Where my fence is going, there is a gas pipeline on the other side, which is constantly mowed and kept clear of any trees for a 50 foot width. Nothing is going to fall on my fence along the pipeline.

What I'm thinking and wondering about is if I can bury the fence. I own a diesel ditch witch riding trencher with a blade on the front. It goes through the ground like butter. If I trenched down 2 feet the entire length of the fence, used longer poles so I still get them several feet into the ground below the trench, then put a 3 foot 12.5 gauge galvanized fence 2 feet into the ground with a foot of it sticking up, then installed my fence along the side of that with a foot of overlap, will the fence in the ground last? I've seen old cyclone fences buried in the ground for decades and all they had was surface rust on them. Still very strong and able to be used as a drag behind my tractor for years and years. I finally got rid of it because I came up with another drag that didn't catch every stick it went over.

Coyotes are a huge problem. Keeping them out is my number one goal. Maybe more important then keeping my animals in. I know guys who have lost 40 fawns in a week from coyotes!!!!! Others deal with a dozen or so losses a year. I want to take the time and spend a little more to make my fence 100% coyote proof. I don't think they will dig down 2 feet, then go farther under the fence and dig back up again. That seems to be too much for me to believe it will happen.

The question is will the fence in the ground last and be able to stop anything from digging through it down the road?

 

[westcliffe01]

Are you going with "no-climb" fence ? The other thing is that they can jump pretty high. The people I know who keep alpacas in Colorado have at least 6 foot high no-climb fence with electric fence run on the outside of that to discourage any beasties from attempting to dig or otherwise tamper with the fence. If there is any chance of black bears, I would not rely on anything buried from deterring them if there is something attractive on the other side. Might not be a problem with black bear in Texas but you definitely have to consider feral hogs and they love to dig too.

 

[davesl708]

Coyotes are pretty determined and inventive. Might be better to bury the fence horizontal along the edge of your vertical fence to deter digging altogether.
An electric fence along the top of your fence is a good deterrence from climbers.
Then start hunting coyotes.

 

[rgr33]

Years ago, maybe 2004 or so, I had a dog that was a world class digger. We only put him in the pen when we were leaving home, but he was always out when we returned. I tried filling the holes with large rocks and other heavy debris, which only amused the dog.
I finally ended up pulling the old fence and trenching 12 inches deep around a new larger pen, buying 5 ft high fencing and burying the bottom of the wire. No dog has ever escaped since, and the underground section of the fence is still in good condition, though pretty rusted. Not sure if this applies to you Eddie, but the skunks and raccoons were not slowed by this set up at all, they still pilfer food and steal dog toys at every opportunity. I seem to lose most battles to the deer and raccoons here, they are relentless.

 

[dmccarty]

When we lived in the city we had a fenced in back yard. For some reason the dog would dig holes near the fence. I think the dirt was just soft and the dog was trying to dig a cool spot to lay in since the fence was only 4 feet tall, and until I put a pad lock on the fence, the dog you open the gate and get out. :shocked: The dog did not wander but would go wait at the front door... :shocked::confused3::laughing: This freaked me out one day when I noticed the gate was opened and went to the front of the house to see where the dog could have gone and found her sitting at the front door waiting for it to open... :shocked::laughing::laughing::laughing:

To stop the digging I put down chicken wire on the ground around the fence. The grass grew up through the wire and one could not tell the wire was there. The a pad lock on the gate to keep the dog from opening said gate. This stopped the digging and the dog waiting for us at the front door.

In our current house, I have to rebuild the fence around our garden because the kids, deer, foxes and coyotes have torn up the fence. The kids used one part of the fence as a soccer back stop even though they have a couple of different soccer back stop/goals. :confused3:

The coyotes and deer....

When we had chickens, we moved the chicken tractor into the fenced in garden to protect the chickens from hawks, owls, foxes and coyotes. The bottom 3-4 feet of the garden fence is the welded wire fence that has small enough openings to prevent deer, foxes, dogs, coyotes, etc from getting into the garden. We don't have many rabbits but a few rabbits did get into the garden. The welded fence needs to be replaced because coyotes and/or foxes tore at the fence to get to the chickens. Now, the chickens were in their chicken tank at night, which the foxes or coyotes could not get into, but they sure tore up the welded fence.

Above the welded fence is HT wire. The fence is about 6 feet above grade. I heard/read we needed an 8 foot fence to keep the deer out of the garden but I figured I would try 6 feet first. For the first few years this worked and then then deer started to get into the garden. Ironically, I don't think they were jumping the fence to get something eat but to get away from the coyotes. :shocked: I would see the deer in the garden when the garden was not growing food. I saw one deer one morning try to get out of the garden and it ran into the fence a couple of times before it figured it needed to JUMP over the fence. :shocked: Dumb deer. That side of the fence was torn up quite a bit.

The six foot high fence seems to have kept out the coyotes but not the deer. The coyotes and foxes took out the welded wire fence over time but they knew there were chickens on the other side of the fence so they had a good reason to attack the fence.

Later,
Dan

 

[Ed of all trades]

I'm still clearing my land for my fence, but it's raining today and I'm taking the day off, so I'm researching ways to keep coyotes out of my land. The most common way that I've been told is to install a predator fence on the ground outside my fence and tie it together like shown in this picture.

View attachment 462975

The problem that I have with this is that I have to put my fence inside my land 3 feet, or whatever the size of the fence is that's flat on the ground. That's really not that much in the grand scheme of things, but I really hate the idea of doing it. Where my fence is going, there is a gas pipeline on the other side, which is constantly mowed and kept clear of any trees for a 50 foot width. Nothing is going to fall on my fence along the pipeline.

What I'm thinking and wondering about is if I can bury the fence. I own a diesel ditch witch riding trencher with a blade on the front. It goes through the ground like butter. If I trenched down 2 feet the entire length of the fence, used longer poles so I still get them several feet into the ground below the trench, then put a 3 foot 12.5 gauge galvanized fence 2 feet into the ground with a foot of it sticking up, then installed my fence along the side of that with a foot of overlap, will the fence in the ground last? I've seen old cyclone fences buried in the ground for decades and all they had was surface rust on them. Still very strong and able to be used as a drag behind my tractor for years and years. I finally got rid of it because I came up with another drag that didn't catch every stick it went over.

Coyotes are a huge problem. Keeping them out is my number one goal. Maybe more important then keeping my animals in. I know guys who have lost 40 fawns in a week from coyotes!!!!! Others deal with a dozen or so losses a year. I want to take the time and spend a little more to make my fence 100% coyote proof. I don't think they will dig down 2 feet, then go farther under the fence and dig back up again. That seems to be too much for me to believe it will happen.

The question is will the fence in the ground last and be able to stop anything from digging through it down the road?

Eddie Your idea along with a hot wire on top sounds like a winner to me. I would go for it. Ed

 

[EddieWalker]

Thank you. I will be installing an 8 foot deer fence that I'm hoping is too tall for coyotes to climb or jump over.

96" x 33' High Tensile Deer Fence

I'm not concerned with any other predators, just coyotes. They are the worse of the worse!!! Hunting them isn't practical, I don't have enough land to control their numbers, and there is too much undeveloped jungle all around me for them to always be there. Whatever I do, it has to be able to keep them from digging under the fence.

Electric fence isn't something that I want to deal with. It's working at protecting my ducks and guineas right now, and will probably continue to work, but it's a never ending maintenance issue that I've come to realize isn't what I want for long term. I'm always spraying round up, weed eating and repairing it. The wild hogs, and other animals hit it and tear it apart. I've had this happen three times this year alone!!!

I'm thinking that if I bury something like this 39" Stiff-Stay 12-1/2 Gauge Field Fence upside down so the smaller sections are up and above the ground, I make it even harder for anything to get through the fence. The 8 foot fence also has much smaller spacing at the bottom, so overlapping them should be about as good as I can get. Then the bigger spacings would be buried in the ground down two feet. It's 12 1/2 gauge, which is the same thickness as chain link fencing.

rgr33, Thanks, that's what I was hoping to hear. I have no idea how deep a coyote will dig, but two feet seems like an aweful lot. Then to go farther under the fence and dig back up again just seems like too much for them.

I've read that they never use the same way under a fence twice by guys who trap them. They say that the best way to trap coyotes is to cut an opening in the fence for them to find, and use snares there to catch them coming in. I don't want to cut the fence. If wand when I find holes dug under the fence, I'm thinking that I will just dump a sack or two of Readi Mix concrete in there and add a little water. I will mow along the fence regularly, so I'm thinking that I should be able to see if there are any holes being dug.

 

[Ed of all trades]

Eddie
My dad had a dog pen for his hounds when I was little. They would climb out and be gone for days so he added a 1 ft. Can't figure how to tell you. Picture an upside down L. The L went out over the dog pen one foot and the hounds could not get over it. If you can't see what i am saying I will try again. Ed

 

[jlgurr]

Razor wire would be entertaining to watch them get caught in.

Im thankful these animals are not common in my area as they would anger me to vengeance.

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[Gary Fowler]

EDDIE: your fence design is what you need. Dogs,coyotes, armadillos etc all start to dig under a fence right at the fence line so by laying your horizontal fence 2-3 feet back from the fence, they stop digging when they find the wire that they cant get thru. If you are concerned about rust out, put in chain link fencing which might last a lifetime. The last time I checked pricing (about 5 years ago) it wasn't much more if any to put in chainlink fencing compared to 4x2 net wire. The big cost for chainlink is the top rail, post and fitting. I didn't use any of that, just the chainlink fencing hooked on to metal T post. I put some of the heavy gauge wire (about 8 gauge) along the top and fastened it with hognose staples. I also ran a line of barbed wire on the bottom to discourage digging ( I didn't bury the wire like your diagram). So far it is holding up well.