First, please know my carpentry skills are terrible and I’m doing this work myself (with the exception of the coop, which you can see is a modified play structure and a carpenter added walls and a roof. Don’t worry; that top story without ventilation I use as a shed for my tools and chicken supplies.
)
So for those of you with beautiful built-from-scratch set-ups, no judgement allowed.
Anyway, when I first started keeping chickens 2 1/2 years ago, I didn’t know any better and built the run out of chicken wire. Over the past several weeks, I recovered all the walls and the ceiling with 1/2 inch hardware cloth (by myself!)
I’m in California, so the weather is mild and I really don’t need a covered run. However, I do like to cover it in the heat of summer and when rainy season comes. When I had chicken wire, the tarp and wire would sag under the weight of the water. Now that the run is recovered and rainy season will (hopefully) come soon, I did a new tarp with a taut line so it is pitched. I still need to pick up some more eye bolts and carabiners so it stays a little tighter, but here’s how it looks right now. It makes it super dark underneath, but since the sun is low, the sunlight comes in sideways, so I think they will still get sunshine in the morning.
)So for those of you with beautiful built-from-scratch set-ups, no judgement allowed.
Anyway, when I first started keeping chickens 2 1/2 years ago, I didn’t know any better and built the run out of chicken wire. Over the past several weeks, I recovered all the walls and the ceiling with 1/2 inch hardware cloth (by myself!)
I’m in California, so the weather is mild and I really don’t need a covered run. However, I do like to cover it in the heat of summer and when rainy season comes. When I had chicken wire, the tarp and wire would sag under the weight of the water. Now that the run is recovered and rainy season will (hopefully) come soon, I did a new tarp with a taut line so it is pitched. I still need to pick up some more eye bolts and carabiners so it stays a little tighter, but here’s how it looks right now. It makes it super dark underneath, but since the sun is low, the sunlight comes in sideways, so I think they will still get sunshine in the morning.
