Official BYC Poll: How Is Your Run Covered?

[Crobinson08]

When we bought our house, the roof was just chicken wire, we have since expanded the run and topped it with hardware cloth. Before this past winter I built the trusses for a solid roof but decided to go with a heavy duty tarp temporarily and it has worked out great for the past 9 months. Eventually I plan to get corrugated panels installed. This has been a big remodel. I tore down the crappy coop and built my own so I also plan on getting the existing part of the run repainted this summer so that everything matches!

 

[ANiceKaren]

For many chicken keepers free-ranging the flock is not an option, so their birds are confined to a chicken run most if not all the time. Chickens kept in coops with a run attached are easier to keep safe from predators. Chicken runs can be basic with wires strung across the top to discourage flying predators like hawks or they can be elaborate with a complete wire roof that is high enough for you to comfortably enter the run to clean.

So please share with us: How Is Your Run Covered?

Please place your vote above, and please elaborate in a reply below if you chose "Other".

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Further Reading:

• Simple Predator Proof Poultry Run
• Accessorizing Your Run- How to Make Your Run More Fun For Your Chickens
• How To Fix A Muddy Run Chicken Coop
• How To Stop Hawks for 30 cents

Check out more exciting Official BYC Polls HERE!...

Solid roof with metal but they free range most of day!

 

[Jenessa_096]

When we bought our house, the roof was just chicken wire, we have since expanded the run and topped it with hardware cloth. Before this past winter I built the trusses for a solid roof but decided to go with a heavy duty tarp temporarily and it has worked out great for the past 9 months. Eventually I plan to get corrugated panels installed. This has been a big remodel. I tore down the crappy coop and built my own so I also plan on getting the existing part of the run repainted this summer so that everything matches!

Aww

 

[BlueHorse17]

We use tarps for now because it rains a lot. Might switch to shingles or something better soon.

 

[BantyChooks]

My new run has netting. My old run had nothing covering it.

 

[Liz Birdlover]

1/2" wire (hardware cloth) 2x8 panels with treated wood, predator proof, dug 2 feet down, lots of hawks, foxes, raccoons, neighbors cats & coyote here.

 

[Sydney65]

The

My run is a metal green house frame. I have chicken wire over the top. In the winter, I covered it with two heavy duty tarps. I only have one tarp on now, for more light, as the trees give a fair amount of shade.

In the next month or so, we're going to put clear polycarbonate sheets on for a roof. Then there will be plenty of light. There will be a ridge vent to allow the hot air that's rising to escape. If it does get too warm, I'll throw a tarp over part of it for shade.

Polycarbonate sheets are great! Ours is built like a truck on sleigh runners so the run is attached. In the winter we enclose the run w/the polycarbonate sheets so they have a sun room. Lol.

 

[L7 Farm]

We are required by our town to keep the chickens from free-ranging, but we also have plenty of airborne predators around, so to maximize their run space we built a cheap fence with chicken wire and metal posts, and used baseball-style poultry netting on top. But here's the nice part: we have an old barn vent cap, about seven feet high, from my spouse's childhood farm barn (the barn was torn down a few years ago and her parents graciously let us take the cap). It provides shelter, and the top of it forms a nice pinnacle in the center of the enclosure. I made "tentpoles" out of a couple of old bird feeder poles and some 8 foot lengths of cheap 2 x 2 -- I cut off about a foot, screwed it on to the top to make a "t", and then buried the pole about a foot deep, using the tension from the netting on top. The netting is stretchy, so allows shaping. The tricky part was getting it over the whole fence enclosure first, but we zip tied as we went and then shaped it with the "tent poles".

What's nice about this is it allows the birds plenty of space to fly around, head room for humans, and it looks reasonably nice. It's not going to keep a determined raccoon, etc. out, but that's what the coop is for. And again, cost-effective

To discourage the local hawks (and occasional eagle) from diving down and getting entangled in the netting, we put some cheap holographic-silver pinwheels on top of the coop, the barn vent cap, and our "tent poles" to spin when it's windy and add glare. This just adds to the circus-tent like feel of the enclosure, of course!

We'll see how long this lasts but we have plenty of extra netting for patches as required.

 

[HappyClucker7]

I have hardware cloth over the run, then a gap, and a roof on top.

 

[srhalford]

40x8 run - covered roof right out the coop door then 2x2 welded wire on the remaining top and sides. Chickens can come and go as they please and have access all day to an additional fenced in corral. They don't spend much time in their run and are only in the coop at night. They share the corral with ducks, which have a separate duck house and small pond within the corral. You can see the back of chicken coop, roof & run in the first pic (beyond the garden area) and 2nd pic. Third and 4th pics are the front side entrance to the run and last 2 pics are the duck house and small duck pond. The entire property is surrounded with electric wiring as well. We haven't had any predator problems yet.