Freezing rain and snow wreaking havoc on my run cover. :(

[MyLittleRedCoop]

Our run is covered with plastic mesh "bird netting". After hours of freezing rain, followed by sleet and then snow, the cover to our run is sagging pretty badly. It has wires crossing it to help hold it up, but I'm guessing they can only stand so much weight. There are icicles hanging down, with clumps of snow-covered ice on top. We tried knocking down the ice by using a hard flat item to break it off, but the clumps are not breaking up enough and they're too big to fall through.
Ugh. Anyone who has dealt with this before? Not sure how to proceed and worried we are going to have to re-cover it.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

I used to use bird netting too and the snow brought it down.

Now I have the heavy knotted 2" netting rated for 80lb breaking strength. I have not seen snow with it though and cannot tell you if it will hold up OK.

I ran rope down the length of it and across the middle and hung the rope on the posts, not the net, so hopefully it will spread the load.

Here:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/690271/stellas-social-club/10940
see post #10943 (not my post)

The snow will still stick on there and you will still have to knock it off.

I also have tried the 2" metal chicken wire overhead and the snow made that sag too.

So I think the best solution for snow is one like this:
https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/schroeders-schroeders-byc-chicken-coop

But my pen is too big so I am hoping my net will hold.

Bird netting definitely isn't strong enough for snow though.

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Another thing you may consider is shade cloth - it is stronger - but it will collect all the snow.

 

[MyLittleRedCoop]

Our run is approximately 20' by 25'.
We looked at using the shade tarp but we were worried that that size would be problematic. :/
Everything I read about the mesh was that it had large enough holes that it wouldn't collect snow. Sigh... It's supposed to get good and cold this coming week, too, so won't be melting off any time soon.