have chickens too, the plastic wire splits in the sun and falls apart, depending on how wide your coop is you may need a T in the middle as chicken wire will flex,bend and stretch. with the post even if you have to many post if they are not in the ground deep enough they will bend out and pull...
use live traps for the rats and kill with a pellet gun, chickens will eat the mice and rats, poison will kill the chickens after eating the rats I agree. rats will kill old and young chickens. I have some neat ways of catching rats n mice alive.
I am 44 years old n my kids are over 20 now, I have always wanted a farm. have few ideas how to start out but not much money to go around, paycheck to paycheck. is it worth it to start out now at my age? what can you tell me if you think it is a good idea any advice would me.