New To Raising Chickens

[Robin Green]

Hi just started on my journey to raising backyard chickens. My husband is in the process of building me a coop. What's the best material to use for the chicken run?

 

[Leahs Coop]

Hello, and a warm welcome to Backyard Chickens! It's great to have you here with us and I hope you'll enjoy this site as much as we all do!
I'm sorry I can't be of any help to your question, but hopefully someone will pop in soon!

 

[Brahmachicken240]

Welcome to Backyard Chickens

 

[LavvyTaffy]

Hi just started on my journey to raising backyard chickens. My husband is in the process of building me a coop. What's the best material to use for the chicken run?

Howdy and
Galvanized hardware cloth should work best as the holes are not small enough for any predators to get through. You should also bury some along the perimeter of the run. Hope this helps!

 

[Pork Pie]

Hi and welcome to BYC and congrats on your new hobby. Good advice above and I am sure more will be on its way. There will be some great information in the learning centre.

Here are some links to key resources:

• List of guides on how to use the site - announcements-feedback-issues-guides.3
• Great resource for beginners = https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/category/learning-center.11/
• Good starting point for browsing the site - https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/
• Interesting feedback on how members manage their flocks -https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/topic-of-the-week-thread-archives
• Excellent source of local information - Find your State's thread.

Best wishes

Pork Pie

 

[Hencraze24]

Pine wood is good for birds. DO NOT use cedar, it is toxic to chickens. ours is elevated 4 feet off the ground for predators.

 

[Chick-N-Fun]

Welcome to our FUN-omenal community! Best wishes and have Lots of FUN!

 

[Hencraze24]

oh yeah, and

 

[wyoDreamer]

My chicken run is 2"x4" Welded wire fencing, 6' tall. We ran 3' wide chicken wire fencing around the bottom, burying it 8" into the ground.
The coop is a concrete room that was built onto the barn before we bought the place.

In My Opinion (IMO), as long as your coop is a secure place that you can lock them in at night, the run does not need to be 1" square Machine fabric. I would not have a run if I had to buy machine fabric for fencing, that stuff is expensive and my run is fairly large.

 

[chkva]

Hardware cloth for a small/medium run... I have a run that's 1500 SQ FT and it's going to double in size soon. We used tough deer fencing we found at Lowe's, I can literally lean on it and it won't come down. It's 7 feet high and the holes are small. It's not completely predator proof, but it's more to just keep my neighbors dogs out. I would free range, but the dogs are often in my yard and not really chicken friendly. The coops are inside the run area and are sealed tight from predators when locked up at night.