Looking For A Run I Can Add To My Coop/Run Area

[Awestruck]

Thanks for all the help, encouragement, and suggestions here. I appreciate you all taking the time to help me figure this out.

 

[Cryss]

Nice thing about chain link dog fence run...if you want to extend you buy a second run, remove one original panel and use that with the new panels to increase the run from 10x10x6 ti 10x30x6! Three times the size! Yup that's my plan. Dont forget the hardware cloth.

 

[Blooie]

Cattle panels are a nice option. Ken and I were in our mid 60s and we both have some disabilities. But we put ours together in a weekend, all by ourselves. We have absolutely NO building skills.

It's comparatively cheap. All it is is a few cattle panels and a few steel fence posts pounded into the ground. We arched the panels between the posts and wired them in place.

It's nice and tall, so we can stand up comfortably in it to work in there.

It's easily expandable, which we did once. We just took off the end, added two more fence posts, arched the new panel between them and fastened it to the rest of the run, and put the end back on.

Because we didn't go with elaborate framing, it flexes with the weather, allowing it to stand strong against our ridiculous Wyoming weather. We often get 40 mph sustained winds with gusts in the 60 mph range and last January we had an officially recorded gust of 90 mph. We never had to repair it...not once. The only place where there's any framing is the people door to get in.

Heavy snows slide off.

It's easily covered for shade in summer and with plastic (think greenhouse) in winter. IT was also easy to cover it with chicken wire to deter overhead predators like hawks and pests like squirrels. We ran hardware cloth up the sides about 2 feet, then folded that out at the bottom and outward about 2 more feet, anchored it in place with landscape fabric staples and the grass grew right up through it. We can mow all the way to the edge of the run to eliminate hidey holes for smaller pests like rodents and it prevents diggers from getting in.

It's attractive. In our case we put up a little white vinyl lattice fence in front of it.

If you can pound fence posts into the ground, arch panels between them, and wire the panels to the posts and each other, you can build this run.