Chicken Run Height

[ScottsdaleChicken]

Hi!

We live in Scottsdale, AZ and will need to protect our Chickens coop from rats, hawks, coyotes, and bobcats.

We plan to run Mesh Wire around our coop, use motion activated security lights, and a motion activated rain bird to spray water. I think we have that part covered.

However, I'd like to build a fenced in run for the chickens as well. **see the design. The run will be about 14' long towards the back, and each section of the U will be about 24' long. It'll be about 2' in width. I plan to fill the run with Hay, and the top will have hinges for easy open and clean out.

My questions are these?

1. Do you think this is enough space for 7 chickens?
2. Do you anticipate my clean out plan will be OK?
3. How high should the run be? (i'm trying to be a little cheap here, and cut the 4' mesh wire in half, so the run height is 2')

 

[azygous]

You need to plan on 10 square feet per chicken for run space. Beyond that, the height is strictly for your own benefit. Take it from a person who scrimped on overhead space when building her first run, deciding to make it four feet high which was how tall the steel hog panels were.

It suited the chickens just fine, but my back seems to be growing older and stiffer and bending over became anything but fun. I eventually tore the entire run down, and built a wood framed run with a sturdy roof that I can now stand up in. I'm much happier, and that makes my chickens much happier, too.

Go to my profile page and click on my album on "new pen" to see photos of my run if you're interested.

 

[Shamo Hybrid]

Yeap. Build your run high enough unless you want to be known as Quasimoto by the neighborhood folks.

 

[blackdog043]

Are you saying the run will be a U and only be 2 ft wide (the grayed out area)?

 

[jolenesdad]

Since it’s only 2 feet wide you should be fine cleaning it out from above, but that’s a lot of bending over. Otherwise, design wise that’s fine.

It’s not quite enough for 7 chickens however if they’re never going to come outside the run. 10 sf is really a minimum, you still may have issues with bullying and crowding, especially with the square footage laid out this way. I would consider widening the run by the coop area and maybe making it a little taller there too with roosts to give more run square footage and also larger spaces to congregate and with the vertical space, also get away from the group.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I guess I'm not understanding the plan either. So it's like a 2' wide tunnel that goes 14', 24' and 14'? I agree with the others - if that's the plan, go wider. A narrow, long space isn't as usable as a rectangular or square one, especially if you end up with picking or bullying issues, as that doesn't allow the chickens to put space between each other the way a square or rectangular run would.

Also unless you love bending down you'll quickly wish that you'd built something walk-in height. Even if you only need to clean infrequently it's not an enjoyable task when you have to be bent down or bent over for it.