Plants For Chicken Run

[Rachar]

Hey everyone!! Newbie Here! I was raised with chickens, but that seems to be a million years ago, though I am only 30! But I dived right in this spring with 30 Cornish X meaters, 5 Buff Orpington hens, 5 Red Sexlinks, 1 Buff Orpington rooster, (ordered them from the Amish up here and got exactly what I wanted!!) and then picked up 6 bantams from TSC at 50 cents each. We have a chicken tractor we made (man, is it Heavy!!) for the meat chicks, and we are working on the hen house! We are converting an old shed of my Grandma's into the Hen house. I have it all designed, and have been stalking this page and pintrest coming up with my ideas for the nest boxes and all that. That is good!

Anyway, my main chicken run is going to be 10'x 18'. We are using dog kennel panels that a neighbor gave to us and covering it with chicken wire along with building a top (hubs will weld extensions on it on an angle) and putting steel on a section of it. We will also be placing sand in the run to raise the ground up and help with drainage as we have a lot of clay base in our area. Because of where we are, I picked the highest spot on our land that made the most sense. However, there is no shade there, and living in MI we have some warm summer weather. So i am looking at some plants for shade. Thinking Grape vines planted along the outside of the fencing, a butterfly bush on the inside, possibly lilac bushes? I will free range the birds when they get a bit bigger and my dogs get bird trained!!

Speaking of, How do your labs do with Chickens running around?

 

[FishNFowl]

I started 2 cold hardy figs for that reason. Haven't had enough time to tell you if it's going to work or not though! I thought about grapes too, but wasn't confident they would survive.

 

[Rachar]

Thats what I am worried about with the grapes... but we have them on our dog kennel and the leaves grow crazy for coverage on that!!

 

[aart]

Think about the chicken wire and the grape vines grabbing snow in the winter....
.......even my 2x4 welded wire run roof has to be cleaned off once in while if the snow fall starts out wet.
Darn near collapsed once the first winter, after that I kept a close eye to keep it clear of snow.

 

[Rachar]

Think about the chicken wire and the grape vines grabbing snow in the winter....
.......even my 2x4 welded wire run roof has to be cleaned off once in while if the snow fall starts out wet.
Darn near collapsed once the first winter, after that I kept a close eye to keep it clear of snow.

Good point. We have them on our dog kennel, but it has a covered roof. We are going to cover the first part of the run with some barn steel to protect it from the rain and snow a bit, but leave the rest so they can sun??

 

[aart]

Quote: Maybe, depends on the site and where the sun travels, especially in winter.

Hops might be a good plant to grow for shade, it grows really fast and the vines are easier to take down in fall than grape vines would be.