I'm going to be building a new run this spring for my coop.And I would like to see some others to get some ideas.my coop is 8x8 what size should my run be.if you could do yours again what would you change or what are some neat ideas you've seen for runs.My birds free range alot but I want a safe place for them to hang out when I'm not home.Here is the coop ill try to get a better pics that show the lay of the land better later.I'm thinking of possibly going off the left side.thanks
I won't suggest a run size without knowing how many birds you have. But since you want to come off the left, does that mean you want it to be 8 ft. wide? Then I'd figure 10 ft. per bird and go from there.
One issue I see is that it's nice if your pop door leads out to your run, and it might be a little tricky to finagle that with where you have it now...but not impossible. You could add another pop door in that side, that would only be used when they'd need to be in the run. Many folks have had success with a little wire chicken tunnel that leads into the run. Or maybe you're simply planning on leading them into the run with treats?
I'm always proud of our chicken moat. The one thing I would do different is get taller fencing and just angle it so it meets in the middle. This we had to cover with bird netting and its not as secure. We had our garden in the middle. At the end of summer we just turned them loose in it and they cleaned all the stray veggies right out and really enjoyed it.
edited to add: I wish the run was tall enough for us to walk in!
Well, the bigger, the better I say! The size of mine was determined by the side of a barn that makes up one end, and 16 foot cattle panels that made up two others.
Here is the diagram:
This is our run... it's 10x18. I love how we added a roof to 3/4 of it. This will allow the chickens to still go out when it's raining/snowing... it also keeps the ground from getting too wet. We did put down a layer of stone and laid 6-8 inches of playground sand over that to really help with drainage. I definitely like that it's tall enough for us to walk around in there as we spend A LOT of time hanging out with the chicks. Hope you get a lot of good ideas for your run!
ETA: The dimensions on the run are actually 10x20... oops!
