I have only a few suggestions/cautions mostly around the tarps, especially the white mesh reinforced clear one. Watch for flying runs... if the wind can pick it up, the runs can turn into giant kites. The clear mesh tarp is very solid and quite good at this. My tractors weigh around 300-400 lbs and a 10x12’ tarp just on the run roof was able to lift it in (extreme 90km+/hr) high winds. One other thing to be very careful of is tarps wearing and fraying. Due to the “flight issue” I slashed and overlapped my tarps which increased fraying, though you can easily get iy with just rubbing as well (I have wooden frames so this expedited the process too). Chickens can eat the frayed tarp stringy bits which can cause severely impacted crops (I was unable to cure this as it was just too impacted. I couldn’t bring myself to attempt crop surgery on a conscious bird. I don’t have a vet, a helper, or the experience to do it successfully alone IMO). Just things to be aware of and watch for. Otherwise it looks pretty good. I’m not sure what the weather is like in your area, but you may also want to have a good backup plan incase things get too severe. I put my hospital tractor inside a barn last year for a bit, due to severe weather. A plan b is always handy!
Excellent points, Kris! Thank you. I will keep an eye on the fraying potential. That is so sad! I am so sorry you lost a bird that way!
We can get very strong winds here. We are at high elevation (for our area) and open on the north and north-west. The house and garage/barn are blocking a lot, but some diverted wind makes it around. I did have a horrible cartwheel incident when only the top and a couple of tarps were on, and no stakes or cinder blocks positioned there to help hold it down either. Now I have both, with additional stakes to hammer in still. I've been observing it and it isn't swaying at all (yet). I was thinking that having it better enclosed would help because the wind can't (theoretically) get "in" to lift, and that may be helping now, but I am keeping an eye on it all. I recognize that a failure in one part could cascade to the kite scenario.
Plan B in potentially bad weather is to unhook the coop & coop run from the walk-in run via the re-useable zip-ties. Then if the walk-in run rolls it won't take the coop run & coop with it.
Plan C is to unhook it and move the coop & coop run into the garage in place of my car. Easy to do prior to the ground freezing, otherwise the skirting frozen to the ground will prevent moving it at all (actually helping everything stay in place - the skirting attachments can be removed if I have to move it, though they may be encased in ice too). This last summer I moved the coop around within a small protected wooded clearing which was good for weathering storms, but then I didn't need electric to it.
Plan D, maybe the easiest in a pinch, but more stress for them, is to get a large enough dog crate that the four birds could spend the night in inside the garage or here in the house. I still need to do that. I have a large cat carrier I have used for transport to free-range areas when they were smaller chicks, which could fit one but is now too small for four of them at once. It's on my list as it would be good for quarantine/hospital times, or the famous broody breaking I hear a lot about. Is there a recommended size? I will search.
Thank you for looking and assessing, I REALLY appreciate it!
... so sometimes I miss things... but usually I try hard to keep up! I am also the same with social media and this site.. which I love!!
