Chicken Run Foundation Over Hardware Cloth

[FarmerGirl101]

Thank you for that link! We are about a month out from our typical first snow and this was on my list of things to research. As for your dirt suggestion, we have acres and acres of that so I can easily line it with dirt. My girls have never experienced dirt outside their dirt bath. So I am not certain what their behaviors will be just yet, but I in no way wish to cause them harm by not lining the run properly.

Of course! I thought that would be very useful given the numerous articles linked.

Perfect, you can always switch the dirt every once in a while then. We refresh ours every other year (they free range so it is less important for us). You can always play around with it with adding different mulch amounts. Just as long as they have a spot to take a dust bath.

 

[Sefirothe]

Since you said you get snow....

You are gonna want to brace up the roof of your run.

 

[FunClucks]

Oh boy...my girls don't like to be handled (I got them as young hens, not chicks or pullets) unless its later in evening and now I have to add clipping nails to my list. LOL. I like your composting suggestion. We do have an active compost pile that I put their spent pine shavings in that I pull from the coop. I didn't think to add the wood chips to it too. And YES, wood chips are plentiful around here.

A note about rain - address keeping the water out of the coop now - it's the perfect time. I got some 6" wide coiled aluminum edging like for flower beds I think, and pounded that a couple inches into my hard clay ground around the entire coop. Most water hits that and flows around my run instead of through it. There was one corner that I didn't think would be an issue so I didn't do it. Guess where the rain enters every time it rains? Also consider French drains, berms, overhangs on your tarp or roof, really any way to direct the water. It's really important to get this sorted before your chickens have to live in it, and find the hard way it's unsuccessful. You want them to be standing in dry wood chips while the ground outside the run is soggy.

There's some folks on here that made a rotating drum out of wire mesh, and managed to remove the large wood chips from their composted dirt - chips go back in the run, dirt goes in the garden. I thought that was brilliant.

You can go out at night after dark, or at dusk when they're on the roost, and using a red headlamp, wrap each of them in a bath towel, shove them under your arm like a football, and cut nails. They can't see the red light but you can, so they stay calm. A helper with a flashlight works too. You'll want some styptic powder (Quikstop), as inevitably you'll quick them at some point. Very much like dog nails, I use a dog nail clipper or a dremel.

 

[CrookedCoopAz]

Since you said you get snow....

You are gonna want to brace up the roof of your run.

View attachment 4217894

The most we get usually is a few inches in a storm, but if I got more than a few I can see this happening. THIS IS GOOD TO KNOW!!! I will show my hubs this picture. Thank you for the heads up.

 

[CrookedCoopAz]

A note about rain - address keeping the water out of the coop now - it's the perfect time. I got some 6" wide coiled aluminum edging like for flower beds I think, and pounded that a couple inches into my hard clay ground around the entire coop. Most water hits that and flows around my run instead of through it. There was one corner that I didn't think would be an issue so I didn't do it. Guess where the rain enters every time it rains? Also consider French drains, berms, overhangs on your tarp or roof, really any way to direct the water. It's really important to get this sorted before your chickens have to live in it, and find the hard way it's unsuccessful. You want them to be standing in dry wood chips while the ground outside the run is soggy.

There's some folks on here that made a rotating drum out of wire mesh, and managed to remove the large wood chips from their composted dirt - chips go back in the run, dirt goes in the garden. I thought that was brilliant.

You can go out at night after dark, or at dusk when they're on the roost, and using a red headlamp, wrap each of them in a bath towel, shove them under your arm like a football, and cut nails. They can't see the red light but you can, so they stay calm. A helper with a flashlight works too. You'll want some styptic powder (Quikstop), as inevitably you'll quick them at some point. Very much like dog nails, I use a dog nail clipper or a dremel.

Their main coop, my photo on the left will be completely enclosed this weekend. We've had quite a few monsoons with sideways rain and it did get their shavings wet. I would go out a few times during the day and turn it over so everything dried. We are coming into our wintery drizzle season so enclosing it was high priority. We will be using the clear pvc sheets on the walls of the coop. As for the run... we didn't plan to wall that up at all. Today we had quite a bit of rain and at your suggestion, I watched how it drained. The slope of the pad the coup and run are both on deflects the water around both thankfully. The roof situation I will have to rethink since another poster showed what happened with snow.

Thank you for the red light advice! I think we have a few headlamps with that option and Ill give that a try this evening when I go out to doctor up a hen with a pecking sore.

 

[FunClucks]

Their main coop, my photo on the left will be completely enclosed this weekend. We've had quite a few monsoons with sideways rain and it did get their shavings wet. I would go out a few times during the day and turn it over so everything dried. We are coming into our wintery drizzle season so enclosing it was high priority. We will be using the clear pvc sheets on the walls of the coop. As for the run... we didn't plan to wall that up at all. Today we had quite a bit of rain and at your suggestion, I watched how it drained. The slope of the pad the coup and run are both on deflects the water around both thankfully. The roof situation I will have to rethink since another poster showed what happened with snow.

Thank you for the red light advice! I think we have a few headlamps with that option and Ill give that a try this evening when I go out to doctor up a hen with a pecking sore.

I've done plastic sheeting myself - it's all in how you hang or attach it. I tried securing it on vertical chain link panels with plastic or metal zip ties, and over time it would pull big holes in the plastic until the sheeting tore off due to wind. If you can sandwich the plastic sheeting between 2 flat sheets of wood, it would probably work great. Instead, I got a tarp and staked the edges out to keep coop floor dry.

For a quick fix during heavy rain and a muddy/flooded run, you can toss some pallets in there, and they can stand on those to get out of the wet. Not a permanent solution, because poop builds up on those, but it helps if you get flooded.

Here's the tarp (Super heavy duty, or Super Duty from Queen of Tarps) I used in case you have to go that route. More expensive than plastic, but they last 2-3 years or so in my climate. We get tornadoes here, and they make it through fine. I've pulled snow off the coop below, and the tarp is fine with it, but I get a few days, maybe a week or two and a foot total of snow a year. I knock off the snow every morning as best I can, or every other day, with a rake or something. My coops aren't build for snow, but they stand up well enough as long as it doesn't get too heavy.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

I've done plastic sheeting myself - it's all in how you hang or attach it. I tried securing it on vertical chain link panels with plastic or metal zip ties, and over time it would pull big holes in the plastic until the sheeting tore off due to wind. If you can sandwich the plastic sheeting between 2 flat sheets of wood, it would probably work great. Instead, I got a tarp and staked the edges out to keep coop floor dry.

Here's the tarp (Super heavy duty, or Super Duty from Queen of Tarps) I used in case you have to go that route. More expensive than plastic, but they last 2-3 years or so in my climate. We get tornadoes here, and they make it through fine. I've pulled snow off the coop below, and the tarp is fine with it, but I get a few days, maybe a week or two and a foot total of snow a year. I knock off the snow every morning as best I can, or every other day, with a rake or something. My coops aren't build for snow, but they stand up well enough as long as it doesn't get too heavy.

View attachment 4218230

A translucent tarp; I had never thought about those for the sides of runs in winter. (I’ve only used tarps for shade.)

I like the idea of the groomers and durability. I’ve had a hard time imagining Saran wrapping a run!

 

[FunClucks]

A translucent tarp; I had never thought about those for the sides of runs in winter. (I’ve only used tarps for shade.)

I like the idea of the groomers and durability. I’ve had a hard time imagining Saran wrapping a run!

I tried 6 mil plastic sheeting vapor barrier for wrapping the sides of the run - it can work for a few months. I've been really pleased about the transparent tarp.

After a while, mold grows/dirt gets stuck on the tarp and reduces tranparency (at least where I live). But it's still better than a solid color - I have tree cover to keep it cool. I've taken the tarp down, scrubbed it off, and reinstalled, and I've also tried to scrub in place. An anti-fungal rinse might work better, like the stuff they put on roofs, like Spray & Forget, but I didn't want the chemicals in my yard. So soap and water it was.

here's an example of my winter setup to cut down on biting winds thru the run. I have an enclosed coop/run combo, so they're in it 24/7, and I wanted to maintain ventilation but cut out the velocity. It worked well, and I removed it once weather was warm again. It was a warmer December day here - I propped the bottom open along half of the coop.

 

[perkolator]

Do you have a bunch of digging rodents and predators in your area?

I see you mention changing it up isn't an option, but personally I'd take it out in favor of a perimeter skirt, mostly because it's 1/4" HC used on the ground. 1/4" HC is only 23-ga thick vs 1/2" HC at 19-ga, and with ground contact/being buried will deteriorate much faster than normal, and make potentially hazardous surface when they dig down to it after a few years. If the ground is full of lava rocks and stones, I don't see many predators being able to penetrate that even if they wanted to. I'd be much more concerned with the snow loads vs that pole structure if you're trying to winterize it. I'd also have the same concerns about the main structure, since it does not look like it's built to support snow loads on that roof and wall framing.

I have 1/2" HC under the floor of my coop structure only, and 6" is about the shallowest I buried it on the shallow-end, to keep chicken feet away from it; on occasion they've dug down to it, but they also have a bigger run without any HC underneath and they can dig freely there. We have heavy mole activity everywhere in our property, and in old coop rodents started using those holes and tunnels go get in/out of the run; more rodents = more rattle snakes that I definitely don't want around. I also have dry CA climate with no snow and hardly any rain and a solid roof overhead, so less concern about it deteriorating.

I use a base of wood chips + various organics in my runs. Everything mixes up with native soil below over time, I just keep adding more organics. A few years of chicken activity + wood chips has allowed me to now be able to easily dig 12" down in the run with little effort, in what used to be hard ground because of lots of decomposed granite. Now at a point where I've been harvesting topsoil/compost blend from my run to use in gardening.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

I tried 6 mil plastic sheeting vapor barrier for wrapping the sides of the run - it can work for a few months. I've been really pleased about the transparent tarp.

After a while, mold grows/dirt gets stuck on the tarp and reduces tranparency (at least where I live). But it's still better than a solid color - I have tree cover to keep it cool. I've taken the tarp down, scrubbed it off, and reinstalled, and I've also tried to scrub in place. An anti-fungal rinse might work better, like the stuff they put on roofs, like Spray & Forget, but I didn't want the chemicals in my yard. So soap and water it was.

here's an example of my winter setup to cut down on biting winds thru the run. I have an enclosed coop/run combo, so they're in it 24/7, and I wanted to maintain ventilation but cut out the velocity. It worked well, and I removed it once weather was warm again. It was a warmer December day here - I propped the bottom open along half of the coop.

I really like how you flared the roof out (by extending the ties to the side) in both systems. And intuitively, it seems that your winter setup would divert any wind blowing on the sides better than if the tarp simply hugged the framing, forming a wall blocking the wind.

(I have no idea if that makes sense to anyone else, as I'm still trying to figure it out myself.)