Chicken run covering

[Rich55016]

I am new to chickens, and I am sure this has been asked a hundred times. I am just about finished with my coop, and i am now starting my run. As you can see I have all my posts in, and need to start enclosing it. I am going to run 2 x 12's on the bottom between the posts, covered with hardware cloth 1' underground and 3' above. On top of that I am going to run chicken wire from the 3' mark to the top overlapping the cloth by about 6-8 inches. My question is what should I run over the top, I don't think I can afford hardware cloth over the top. My run is a 24 x 24 square minus the 8 x 10 coop.

 

[aart]

Consider an apron, instead of burying 1 foot straight down go down just a couple inches then out 12-18"...easier to do and more effective.
Not sure why folks bother with hardware cloth on part of the run and use chicken wire on the rest......
....coons reaching thru sure, but if they can't reach thru they'll just climb up and chew thru.

I use hardware cloth on all coop openings for night time security, but 2x4 fencing on all the run including apron and roof to keep off hawks for sure and slow anything else way down.

 

[21hens-incharge]

I myself used chicken wire over the top of the run. My main predators around here would be raccoons and hawks. I am not trying to make a bear proof run by any means but since the girls are locked up tight in the coop at night the chicken wire works for us. It is a risk I take and I know it.
My dogs will scare off raccoons in the very early morning if they come around.

Now that being said we did have a mama and 2 kits this year. They were not around long but were here long enough to worry me. Either another chicken keeper caught them in a trap or they were mushed on the highway. I have not seen hide nor hair of them in a couple weeks. Many people near me have chickens as well so there were a lot of us with traps set for them.

I know the budget can get blown quickly by hardware cloth.

 

[Alaskan]

I would look though the construction debris at the dump, free ads on Craigs list and Facebook, and make one section of the run covered... The rest of the run... Well, that depends on if you want a Fort Knox type run so that the pop door is always open and you can sleep in on Saturdays, or if you are happy to always open and shut the chicken door.

If you don't want it super secure, and like in a light snow to no snow area.... I would go with fish net or chicken wire (whatever I got free.)

If you want it completely secure, I would look until you find something that will work... I couldn't find hardware cloth for free... So I did thus:

Double layer, wired together.