Finally a dry chicken pen!

[aart]

Yikes! It will be the first winter with this setup, so I'll have to sweep off as much snow as I can. One thing going for it is that it's under a very large spruce tree.

The rain may get it before the snow does...watch it closely.

 

[Folly's place]

We see you, out there at 2am, in a blizzard, sweeping snow.
Worse, under that tarp when it all collapses.
Mary

 

[GabbyC96]

View attachment 1985829 I’ve been fighting a wet soggy pen for quite some time now. The chickens didn’t seem to be bothered, but feeding them and changing water was miserable. So I decided to wrap the enclosure with thick plastic and it seems to be doing the trick. Yes there are areas of ventilation you just can’t see them in the picture. My coop is on a hill so there is a open section underneath where the chickens normally congregate on rainy days to stay dry. This is much better so now they have more room to scratch around. I’m pretty happy with it and now have plans to construct an actual greenhouse that they can winter in. This will do for now.

I never thought of that! Before I lost my flock (damn coyotes) I was dealing with the same issue. When I re-do the coop, I'm gonna do this! By the way, I'm in South Texas, snow is a very rare occurrence here!

 

[Papa John59]

Living here in southern Baveria (Germany) our weather changes hourly. I put off building our run until I had to....really the wife ordered me to. So on a cold wet Oct Saturday morning, my son and I built the run (10' x 30'). Before we had a chance to put a roof on....the first snow storm hit us, plus 60 mph winds. Luckily, we built it on the east side of house, thus a wind block. (Because of our mountain, the wind only comes from the west.) So the next Saturday we pitched a roof. But we noticed that the rains were blowing in from the sides, so during the week we built 7' x 3' frames and attached a thick plastic wrap to it. That Saturday, we installed our panels. With everything now enclosed we went down to the local sawmill and got 3 tons of bark stripings, to cover the ground.
Now, everything is nice and dry, weather tested, the hens are happy and more importantly, the wife is happy.

 

[AquaDuck]

I use plastic around the pen too. It's located so that the rain and snow blows right in. It doesn't look good, but I prefer practical over pretty any day. This is construction wind break, very solid plastic. The blue one to the right is put up some months ago, and the rest is over a year old and has withstood many storms. It was once blue too and has lost its color in the sun.

 

[Kluk-Kluk]

The rain may get it before the snow does...watch it closely.

Been through many downpours and a few two- and three-day rains. Because the roof is sloped, held up fine. It's the snow, as was pointed out, that might be an issue...

 

[Kluk-Kluk]

It doesn't look good, but I prefer practical over pretty any day.

Amen to that!

 

[aart]

Been through many downpours and a few two- and three-day rains. Because the roof is sloped, held up fine. It's the snow, as was pointed out, that might be an issue...

Well, if you want folks to take a look and offer suggestions,
would be good to start a new thread with pics of roof framing.

 

[azygous]

When I was starting out with chickens over a decade ago, I had a slapped together run made of hog panels and it wasn't the least engineered in any way to keep from collapsing. (I can't believe how ignorant I was.)

By the time real winter weather began to hit, I realized the catastrophe waiting for me and my chickens. So I got several 2 x 4s and used them to shore up the hog panel and sheet plastic roof. Not an elegant solution, but it got me through that first winter that started my long learning curve involving run construction. Now I have a run properly constructed with 2 x 12 beams with 2 x 4 cross members properly pitched. Part of my goal was not only to support a snow load but also a bear-climbing-on-the-roof load.

 

[Folly's place]

And here, the big tree falling on the roof load.
Mary