Official BYC Poll: How Is Your Run Covered?

[L7 Farm]

Just took these earlier this evening. The puppy pen in the middle is for the current brood we're integrating -- they're at five weeks right now so are getting field trips from brooder. The third picture is a little misleading, the fence looks like it obscures the view into the enclosure, but it really doesn't.

The lights are just very low wattage LEDs but they're app-controllable -- a bit of a vanity but it gives us a little illumination in the mornings and now in the evenings, and they add a festive air (they can be set to multiple colors).

The buildings in the back are the historic corn crib and smokehouse that went with the original farm.

As you can see my wife and I have a nice little seating area to watch the hens from!

Oh and if you're curious about the colored poles -- those are driveway markers (normally used in winter to show the edges of our driveway) I used as stiffeners during construction of the fence and netting. They had the virtue of being easy to snake in and out of the chicken wire and poke into the ground, to make getting the fence taut between fence posts easier. At some point I should probably replace them with stakes, but they look nice for now.

We piled old pavers and bricks from the old farm dump we dug out a few years ago around the edge to provide a small measure of protection against the hens digging out or some predators digging in. It's not foolproof obviously, but again, cheap cheap cheap and so far it's worked nicely.

 

[Chicken Alabama]

Here's my run.

 

[Parront]

Just took these earlier this evening. The puppy pen in the middle is for the current brood we're integrating -- they're at five weeks right now so are getting field trips from brooder. The third picture is a little misleading, the fence looks like it obscures the view into the enclosure, but it really doesn't.

The lights are just very low wattage LEDs but they're app-controllable -- a bit of a vanity but it gives us a little illumination in the mornings and now in the evenings, and they add a festive air (they can be set to multiple colors).

The buildings in the back are the historic corn crib and smokehouse that went with the original farm.

As you can see my wife and I have a nice little seating area to watch the hens from!

We have used a light on our house to give the birds more "daylight" in the winter. If you have those where the layers can see them you can make sure that they are getting at least 14 hours of light and extend your egg season.
Very nice grass! I am sure your birds are enjoying it. Mine used to look like that!

 

[L7 Farm]

Oh, and the green-screen tarp -- we have neighbors on that side who are 200 feet away but who still managed to complain about having to look at our chicken yard. (They also complained about the noise our rooster was making; except, we don't have a rooster.) So I splurged for the green tarp (same kind they use on school athletic fields, etc), which also gives the hens a little sheltered shady corner. I don't like the look of it but I REALLY don't like having those neighbors cluck at us.

 

[L7 Farm]

Here's my run.

That's gorgeous!!

 

[Chicken Alabama]

That's gorgeous!!

Thank you.

 

[L7 Farm]

We have used a light on our house to give the birds more "daylight" in the winter. If you have those where the layers can see them you can make sure that they are getting at least 14 hours of light and extend your egg season.
Very nice grass! I am sure your birds are enjoying it. Mine used to look like that!

Indeed, my wife thought of this part -- grew up on a farm -- we have an LED bulb in the coop that we have set to stay on until the same time every night -- that one isn't on a string and is solar powered and has a little remote. My wife made fun of me when I set that up -- her coop growing up had power and they had a switch up in the farmhouse -- but it was a *lot* cheaper than running wiring to the coop and dealing with the hassle of electrical inspections, and the bulb was something like $6. And it's impossible to forget once you set the timer.

I'm sanguine about the grass disappearing eventually, although we're only allowed six birds so I occasionally have delusions it might stay intact, since there's a lot of space for them to scratch.

It's hard to see from the picture, but we have roosts set up on some of the "tent poles" -- branches attached to them at varying heights. The chickens really like these. The old lawn chair we have tipped over is also a favored roosting spot.

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

Since the plague has driven up the cost of lumber, and everything else, we improvised with Construction HDPE Safety Fence for the run cover. Tacky but it works. It's main purpose is to keep the birds in and hopefully keep hawks and kites out. The troops bunk in a secure coop at night and an electric wire keeps the stray dogs away, our main daytime predator, during the day.

When all the silliness is over with we may put a wire covering up or ..... just keep what we have if it continues to work. The chickens seem happy with it.

 

[Sylvester017]

While adding a roofed patio and walkway the contractor built around our Barn Coop. We had the coop in the open air but even with a roof the rain still leaked into the coop. We decided to keep the coop and later the attached run fully covered by a solid patio roof.

After adding the run we tarped over the kennel's wire roof for shade. The hens free-range the back yard so the run door is left open daily.

From the back wall looking past the the big blue canopy, past the two raised garden beds patio is the Barn Coop run in the distance (covered w/ green tarp). Along the block wall (left) we used 2"x4" wire fencing to create a separate walkway for the chickens from their coop run to the back yard. Under the blue canopy in foreground we built a 4'x4' cedar sandbox for the chickens to dustbathe dry if it rains (rare in our climate). We separated our people yard from the chicken yard with the 4' tall wire fencing. The hens see us clearly in the "people" patio while we see the hens in their "chicken" yard.

The rest of the chicken yard -- covered with two more canopies for summer days shade. We built a canal for running water during hot days. Our hens love to play in water.

 

[RebelEgger]

The big run has 3 clear panels on it, let’s in lots of light but the area gets plenty of shade

The littles have a tarp over their brooder run.