Flimsy run with a secure henhouse?

[patandchickens]

Here is the thing. It will be more expensive to fortify your run later, after a predator has been eatin' your chickens, because then the predators will be seriously MOTIVATED (plus at least one of them will know that if you try hard enough, you CAN get into the run), and you will need to build a substantially stronger i.e. more expensive fence to have some hope of mostly keeping them out.

It is easier and probably more satisfactory to never let them get a taste of your chickens in the first place, i.e. build a decently safe run now, BEFORE anything happens.

I am sure there are indeed people in your vicinity with flimsy runs. What you have to ask yourself is, a) how long have they had their current chickens that way, b) how many chickens have they lost to predators in the past, c) do they have other deterrents like a dog or a household member who likes to sit around with a pellet gun, and most importantly d) do I want to assume I will never be less lucky than others. My experience is that there are any number of things in life that you can see lotsa people doing, but that if you try to do them yourself there is a pretty high chance something awful will happen. Keeping horses in paddocks fenced with a strand or two of barbwire; fixing electrical stuff without shutting off the breaker; walking out into traffic while looking the other direction... you get the idea

Predators DO attack during the day, sometimes -- the chances are greater in the dead of winter (when they're hungrier) and in late spring, early summer (when they have younguns to feed) but it can happen any time, really, and it only has to happen *once*.... Also, one of the likelier predators in many areas is a loose dog, which is at least as apt to be a problem in daytime as at night.

You can play predator roulette if you want to, with a weebly run, but if you read back thru the threads on the "Predators and Pests" part of this forum, you will notice a disconcerting trend for people to be quite satisfied with their own weebly runs, feeling sure that there are few predators where they live and none would attack during daytime, right up to the day they log in to post about a buncha their chickens getting killed.

Good luck,

Pat

 

[Momo]

After spending a lot of time reading BYC to jump-start my learning curve, I built a coop this spring with a very secure attached run (full pitched roof, no-climb heavy gauge predator fencing, hardware cloth added along the bottom and buried as well). It was time consuming and more costly than expected, but very satisfying. As Patandchickens says, it's a lot easier to do it right the first time than to retrofit it later. Nothing short of a bear is going to get into my coop (and I built it inside the horse paddock to deter the bears).

My neighbour across the street thought I'd lost my mind to go to so much trouble. Her hens had been just fine for two years in their flimsy run. But then the raccoons found her setup and she lost most of her girls over the course of three days, including two attacks in broad daylight, late morning. Now her three surviving hens are living with mine while she's working on building a new and improved coop.

 

[kidmoab]

Thanks for all the great wisdom friends of chickens!
I'll be roofing the run and think about sinking some kind of digging varmit deterrent. With any luck if the predator comes sniffen around the run the girls will be diggin' in the compost on the other side of the yard...

 

[Heather J]

My coop is secure, my run is...semi. A determined coon could get in despite the fencing, rocks and netting on top, but then they'd have to deal with my geese. lol

I've actually been free-ranging my chickens all day lately because they've stopped laying and my cockerels need to be dealt with (way too many). They are behind a four-foot fence when they range, but if I lived somewhere with trees within 100 feet of my birds, I probably wouldn't let them out to run without supervision because though I've seen no direct proof of raccoons in my yard, I've seen them around town at night. As it is, there's no cover for them during the day, so I feel pretty good about them then.

And if I didn't have the geese to cause all kinds of commotion, I probably wouldn't let the chickens range when i wasn't home to watch them. I've found dogs in my fenced pasture a couple of times--even when I thought I had it well blocked but luckily never lost any birds to them--but it sure made me anxious. The bottom line is to figure what your risks are and protect against them as much as possible.