New To Raising Chickens

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wyoDreamer said:
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.
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Same here!
 
chkva said:
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.
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1,500 sq feet? how many birds do you have? we use 7 foot deer fence from Menard's.
 
Hencraze24 said:
1,500 sq feet? how many birds do you have? we use 7 foot deer fence from Menard's.
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We have 7 chickens (3 hens and 4 chicks). We are doubling it to 3000 SQ FT in a few weeks. We have two ducklings coming soon too. We would free range our whole 3 acres but I have a feeling the neighbors dogs wouldn't be so great with them.
 
:welcome

Best material for the run...
In terms of construction, I'd say 1/2" hardware cloth and treated lumber (the treated lumber is often debated due to the chemicals added to the wood but it's what I use for longevity and my chickens don't seem to mess with it at all). I covered my run with bird netting as well. Certainly you could go out and spend a small fortune on high quality netting, but for $10-$15 I was able to cover my run. I used steel cable to provide support for the netting too.
For ground cover, I'd say mix it up. My run has some rocks, sticks, plants, leaves, and dirt in it. My chickens enjoy scratching through the dirt and even compost when I pile some up in the run. The rocks help provide dry footing in wet weather. Smaller rocks provide grit, although I provide a tire-full of grit in the run too. The plants (mostly just weeds that grow wildly) are forage for the birds. Sticks add dry footing as well as the rocks, but are also toys for the chickens. They grab them with their beaks and run around with them and toss them about. In the fall I add some dried leaves to the run. Wood chips and sand would be fine to add as well. i've also added old straw in the past after using bales for fall decoration. I avoid wood shavings in the run because they get matted and nasty really quick unless you are in a very dry climate. Here in Illinois, would shavings would be nasty muck in a matter of days. I reserve wood shavings for the coop where it stays dry.
 
Hello and welcome to BYC! :frow Glad you joined.
I do things a bit different. I built my run to as close to 2x the minimum recommended size per bird and built it so that it is as secure as the coop (solid roof, 1/2" HC enclosed with 2' predator apron and hot wires around the works). This allows me to leave the pop door open always. When the birds come off the roost in the morning, they immediately go outside. This is good for exercise, keeping peace in the flock and poop out of the coop! The pop door always being open allows constant low fresh air intake.
The coop/run is kept within a 1/4 acre electrified pen. The door out of the run and into the pen I control.
 
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