Need ideas for shade/shelters in the free range yard.

[SilksterTN]

Howdy all you clever and creative BYC ppl. I have a very large fenced in area for my chickens to free range in (they go into their coop at night). The down side to this large yard is that there are no trees or natural shelters (bushes). So they end up clustering underneath their coop and hugging the fence (where I have fence panels leaning up for the time being until I put them away.)
I've been bleeding money right now building the chicken coop and duck enclosure LOL so I am hoping for some ideas for attractive yet functional things I could put in the yard to help protect them. As time goes on and I recover from the coop build, I will plant some shrubs and such but need some temporary ideas. Construction items left over from building:
Lots of hardware cloth scraps but nothing super useful unless I piece it together.
Random pieces of lumber and pallet boards
A whole lotta shade cloth (From a roll I bought eons ago)
Maybe I could build some sort of A frame and use it for veggie growing?
A couple of kiddie yard toys that they do not seem the least bit interested in.


Thanks in advance and can't wait to see your suggestions.

 

[MySweetChickens]

maybe make a shaded area in a corner or something with the cloth

 

[SilksterTN]

It's a very long skinny yard. 18' wide by probably 60' I could definitely do something in the back corner but need to put some things out in the middle too so they can race from shelter to shelter.

 

[KatieKanDo]

Well, depending on the width of your shade cloth, just build some simple A- frames with the scrap lumber so that the width is just 4 inches less than the shade cloth. Big enough that they don't blow around in the wind, but can still be picked up and moved if necessary. Run the shade cloth two thirds down one slope and one third down the other. Leave the gables open. When you tack the shade cloth down, fold the edges under once or twice for strength and hold down with thin slats of wood. Position with the long shaded edge facing South. If it gets too hot underneath and the birds start panting, raise the long edge up several inches. Survival tent making 101.