I have my 6ft long, 8 ft high and 4 ft wide chicken coop and am starting to make the 10 ft long x 8 ft high x 4ft wide chicken run..the plan is that the chicken run can be moved from one side of the coop to the other, as the grass gets all pecked away...im thinking it will be too heavy to do this. What do you all do with your out door chicken areas. Do you replant greens for them, how does that work?
Welcome to another Texan. Chickens will strip the run down to the dirt pretty fast. You can replant the area, but you do need to move the chickens someplace else until the green stuff comes back. You said the run would be too heavy to move. Could you make two permanent runs and alternate the chickens. It looks like your coop has doors on both sides, so it might work.
we made a run out of PVC pipe and chicken wire and it is light weight. I moved it last week, raked and planted some grass seed in the old spot. I hope the grass comes in in about 4 weeks. I am seriously thinking of going for sand in the run next year. Good luck to you !!
Do you have to have naturally-growing grass in the run? My run is permanent and therefore bare. Since I can't move it at all, I have to improvise. This season I chucked in grasses I pulled from other parts of the property (I finally have an excuse not to keep a perfectly manicured lot!) for them to munch on. Next season I plan on introducing some semi-permanent source of vegetation. I haven't quite figured it out how exactly, but I'm tossing around the option of modified raised beds that can be easily removed and installed (because, really, they'll just jump into a permanent one and devour its contents just as much) or perhaps some pots of stuff. If your goal is to keep your lawn area somewhat intact, this obviously won't work, but if you're trying to provide a foraging opportunity for them, you might consider moving the vegetation to them instead of moving them to the vegetation.
I built 4 runs for 8 standard sized hens. Each run is 10'x32'. Covered in netting, secure sides, and an access door granted for maintenance. I have one run coming off the pop door to the South. The 4 main runs feed off this central run to the West. A welded wire gate closes off or opens the specific run they are using. Every 10 days I rotate them to a new run. This keeps them on fresh diverse greens/bugs and off their poop. The run they just came off of gets raked and overseeded with a quick germinating turkey food plot mix...lots of clover, chicory, etc. They love it! This gives a 30 day rest to each run. I have to weed whip or mow during rainy weather...during dry weather all areas are slower to recover. I recently added irrigation to the runs off our well to aid in overseeding success during dry periods. I plan to till and dormant seed 2 runs here in a few weeks and use the other two runs for winter, we'll see how that goes along with the transition from winter into spring.
