If you ask me, building a coop is the easy part. I am totally frustrated about building a run. We have 36 chickens (everybody is happy and healthy right now, knock on wood), so the run needs to be sizable. We are hoping to free range some during the evenings, but it will be a while before they are able to do that as they are just over 2 weeks old right now- if we are able to do it at all, because we have just about every predator except bears and bobcats here. I have read all about chicken wire and how it is designed to keep chickens in and that's all. I get that. My husband, however, is just about the cheapest person on the planet and is VERY resistant to the idea of spending the money on hardware cloth to build a big run. Plus he says he has looked at our local hardware stores and TSC and can't find anything any taller than 4 feet. Obviously I want to be able to stand up inside the run so it can be cleaned up. Is there someplace online we should look? Or is it going to take two rolls of it to make the height we want? What other fencing makes an okay alternative? I realize we will have to have some hardware cloth along the bottom to try to keep out 'possums and coons. What about chain link fence with electrified wire? AND, before I forget, what in the heck do we do about covering the top? Can electrified wire be strung along the top as well? I am trying to come up with a happy medium between keeping them safe and appeasing my husband's, ummmm, frugality I'm honestly not sure it can be done, which makes me really sad. We can't do without a run, because like I said, I don't know that we'll be able to free range much.
We came up with a compromise too... two feet of hardware cloth on the bottom with chicken wire up to the top. The run is 6 feet tall, so it required one roll of hardware cloth and one of chicken wire to get to 6 feet. On the actual top of our run we put camoflauge netting to keep out hawks and provide a little dappled shade. I'm sure if a predator really really wanted to get it, it could plow through the chicken wire part of the run, but the chickens are shut up in the coop at night when most predators are prowling. Oh, we also used hardware cloth to make a 2 foot apron around the entire run. Basically we folded a four foot piece of hardware cloth, buried two feet of it for the apron and ran the rest up as the beginning of the "walls".
I also recommend the two type wire combo...Hardware cloth on the bottom and chicken wire on top. You can design the run so there is a runner board at the right height to nail both to or if you are already done framing you can fasten them together with wire clips.
