DIY Dig Defence

April 5, 2015 4:47 PM

I need to install something like this against my wood fence. I would happily mallet away on them, but they seem ridiculously expensive for what is basically a connected set of metal spikes. Is there any DIY solution to this or is Dig Defence(tm) being sold as a more expensive repurposed version of a cheaper product? If so, what should I be looking for?
posted by asockpuppet to Home & Garden (13 answers total)

Why not just cut-up a batch of re-bar yourself? It won't last forever, but it's dirt-cheap. Do the vertical bits all need to be tied together at the top? Probably not. And good luck trying to pound that Dig Defence stuff in evenly if you live in a place like New England where the ground is 80% rock.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:30 PM on April 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Chicken wire is cheaper I think. Unroll it and bend it into an L shape all along its length. Staple the vertical part to your fence with the horizontal part on the ground inside the fence. The grass will grow up through it. Works great.
posted by evilmomlady at 5:47 PM on April 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: you live in a place like New England where the ground is 80% rock.

Missouri. So I've got a little bit of room before I hit clay.

Chicken wire is cheaper I think. Unroll it and bend it into an L shape all along its length. Staple the vertical part to your fence with the horizontal part on the ground inside the fence. The grass will grow up through it. Works great.

Can I mow over that ok?
posted by asockpuppet at 5:51 PM on April 5, 2015

Garden or landscape staples will keep the chicken wire flat on the ground for awhile (depending on how destructive the dog is).
posted by artdrectr at 6:06 PM on April 5, 2015

Well, you're getting 10 of those, so you're getting 320", or almost 27 linear feet for $90, or $3.40 per linear foot. You can get them on Amazon for about $2.50 per linear foot.

If you wanted something DIY, I'd get some ventilated wire shelving like this from Home Depot at $1.40 / linear foot, and take an angle grinder down the middle near one end to essentially recreate it.
posted by suedehead at 6:07 PM on April 5, 2015

Best answer: The chicken wire thing worked great for me. I didn't use anything on the part that's lying down on the grass and you can mow over it just fine.
posted by dawkins_7 at 6:13 PM on April 5, 2015

Can you mow over it? Maybe. Depends on the height you set your mower. But you could definitely hit that area with a weed whacker.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 6:36 PM on April 5, 2015

Do you have an angle grinder? If you do, you could make this with a couple cattle fence panels, which are like 20 bucks for a 16 foot section. , which you could cut vertically into 20 or so 50 in sections. The only thing is that the tines would be farther apart, so the effectiveness would depend on the dog's size.
posted by rockindata at 6:36 PM on April 5, 2015

Electric fence line around the bottom of the fence and the cheapest charger you can buy (or, better, borrow) because, unless your dog has the smarts of a trilobite, he'll only touch the wire once. Use the plastic wire (easier to string) and the plastic fence offsets and you'll be done in no time. Set the charger on the lowest setting. It hurts, but not as much as you think, and it's instantaneous. I've touched plenty of hot fences and they inflict an insult, not an injury.

The chicken wire will work very well too, though a) it's a lot more work to install and b) it doesn't really teach the dog anything.
posted by bricoleur at 7:07 PM on April 5, 2015 [1 favorite]

And looking at that picture, I think rockindata is right on--those are nothing but cut up hog panels. Sold at a huge premium, of course.
posted by bricoleur at 7:11 PM on April 5, 2015

Hog panels are easy to cut with bolt cutters, though I am sure an angle grinder would work.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:14 PM on April 5, 2015

Best answer: What we did to keep our dogs in was chicken-wire, stapled along the bottom of the fence, and then buried it just about two inches deep, corned back a bit so when the dogs tried to dig at where the chicken wire met the ground they hit chicken wire underneath the dirt, too, and as someone mentioned above the grass grew through it to help hold it down -- worked like a charm.
posted by AzraelBrown at 5:15 AM on April 6, 2015

Response by poster: What we did to keep our dogs in was chicken-wire, stapled along the bottom of the fence, and then buried it just about two inches deep, corned back a bit so when the dogs tried to dig at where the chicken wire met the ground they hit chicken wire underneath the dirt, too, and as someone mentioned above the grass grew through it to help hold it down -- worked like a charm.

I think this might be the winner. I may staple some chicken wire to the fence and sod over the part on the ground. Looks like I have plans for the weekend now.
posted by asockpuppet at 6:37 PM on April 6, 2015