Hi fellow chickenfolk,
I'm looking for some ideas on what to do about adding a cover to our chicken pen. Currently we have a coop inside an enclosure to keep the birds from making a mess in the yard. We let the birds out every morning and close them up at night. The other day we had a rt hawk visit the small trees behind the coop and there's only one reason for that to be happening. My short term fix was to cover the pen with the camo sheet you see in the picture, until I can come up with a better idea. A friend called it a command post. It will keep out raptors but is obviously not a suitable permanent cover. It's a huge pain to get in there and put the birds in and out. The netting gets caught on every little thing. Plus it looks terrible, although the pen needs some finishing work as well in terms of that.
So I've been tasked to come up with a permanent covering. My plan is to use bird netting or some inexpensive equivalent as the cover but I'm getting hung up on what sort of frame to put up to attach it to. The pen is constructed using 4x4 posts and 2x4's to hold up a welded-wire fence. Any top frame has to be compatible with those as a base. The design matches the adjacent garden plot and together they give this part of the backyard a nice "farm" feel. The coop is a 4x6x5h two-level with gabled roof and ridge vent (it's hidden by the netting in the photo) that was designed to sit on a garden cart but turned out to be much too heavy/awkward. It also attaches to my raised beds in the garden next to the pen after growing is done in the fall/winter.
I used some pvc to temporarily hold up the camo sheet hoop-house style. I considered this method for the whole pen to keep at least a garden look, but I don't think it will work well because the door is on the corner, not the middle. I'm not excited about trying to craft a decent-looking door frame to match a curved top.
I also considered simply adding longer posts for a square frame, the obvious alternative, but I haven't been able to commit to that solution yet because I'm worried a box frame will probably give the impression of a large dog kennel, thus possibly spoiling the garden/farm look. I might be wrong about this, probably over-reacting.
I feel like there must be some other creative ways to cover a pen but I'm having trouble finding something that is simple that will work and also keep the atmosphere of this part of the yard as unchanged as I can. Any thoughts?
I'm looking for some ideas on what to do about adding a cover to our chicken pen. Currently we have a coop inside an enclosure to keep the birds from making a mess in the yard. We let the birds out every morning and close them up at night. The other day we had a rt hawk visit the small trees behind the coop and there's only one reason for that to be happening. My short term fix was to cover the pen with the camo sheet you see in the picture, until I can come up with a better idea. A friend called it a command post. It will keep out raptors but is obviously not a suitable permanent cover. It's a huge pain to get in there and put the birds in and out. The netting gets caught on every little thing. Plus it looks terrible, although the pen needs some finishing work as well in terms of that.
So I've been tasked to come up with a permanent covering. My plan is to use bird netting or some inexpensive equivalent as the cover but I'm getting hung up on what sort of frame to put up to attach it to. The pen is constructed using 4x4 posts and 2x4's to hold up a welded-wire fence. Any top frame has to be compatible with those as a base. The design matches the adjacent garden plot and together they give this part of the backyard a nice "farm" feel. The coop is a 4x6x5h two-level with gabled roof and ridge vent (it's hidden by the netting in the photo) that was designed to sit on a garden cart but turned out to be much too heavy/awkward. It also attaches to my raised beds in the garden next to the pen after growing is done in the fall/winter.
I used some pvc to temporarily hold up the camo sheet hoop-house style. I considered this method for the whole pen to keep at least a garden look, but I don't think it will work well because the door is on the corner, not the middle. I'm not excited about trying to craft a decent-looking door frame to match a curved top.
I also considered simply adding longer posts for a square frame, the obvious alternative, but I haven't been able to commit to that solution yet because I'm worried a box frame will probably give the impression of a large dog kennel, thus possibly spoiling the garden/farm look. I might be wrong about this, probably over-reacting.
I feel like there must be some other creative ways to cover a pen but I'm having trouble finding something that is simple that will work and also keep the atmosphere of this part of the yard as unchanged as I can. Any thoughts?
