Official BYC Poll: Is your RUN Covered or Not?

Is your RUN covered or uncovered

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Sounds like a great system. I use corncob litter in mine and scoop daily to keep it clean. Droppings and litter are then added to my compost pile and turned with tractor. Makes for fantastically rich compost.
 
83299A66-54B7-4CD8-B0BA-AEAC0207EC24.jpeg
Partially covered for now... we ran out of 2x4 mesh and are waiting on delivery of more, so we’ve pinned up a painter’s canvas to keep them out of sight of the hawk that lives on the property for now. Never thought I’d be so paranoid about predators in city limits.
 
Covered runs tend to run smaller and be more permanent, at least from what I've seen. I run my birds on a fenced in section of my garden (electric fence, no cover), and a couple times a year I move them and the fence to another section. So they're always doing something useful: either prepping new ground for future garden space (trampling down grass and shallow tilling), or cleaning up the remnants of the garden and eating the pests that hide in the soil at the end of the season, or just laying down fertilizer in the winter.

Whenever I see a static/permanent run, I can't help but think that if you have any sized garden, you're missing out on an opportunity to fertilize it, and you're also increasing your food costs by not providing an area where the chickens can forage. By always having them on grass or garden space, they always have access to greens and bugs, so I don't have to feed them as much grain. I have a small covered run attached to the coop but I only use it if I'm on vacation or need to separate out birds from the flock for some reason. It fills up with weeds every summer, but as soon as I let the birds into it, they trample it down to a dusty wasteland in under a week.
 
Tilhana said:
Covered runs tend to run smaller and be more permanent, at least from what I've seen. I run my birds on a fenced in section of my garden (electric fence, no cover), and a couple times a year I move them and the fence to another section. So they're always doing something useful: either prepping new ground for future garden space (trampling down grass and shallow tilling), or cleaning up the remnants of the garden and eating the pests that hide in the soil at the end of the season, or just laying down fertilizer in the winter.

Whenever I see a static/permanent run, I can't help but think that if you have any sized garden, you're missing out on an opportunity to fertilize it, and you're also increasing your food costs by not providing an area where the chickens can forage. By always having them on grass or garden space, they always have access to greens and bugs, so I don't have to feed them as much grain. I have a small covered run attached to the coop but I only use it if I'm on vacation or need to separate out birds from the flock for some reason. It fills up with weeds every summer, but as soon as I let the birds into it, they trample it down to a dusty wasteland in under a week.
Click to expand...
Not all of us live on farms where we can move birds and fences around as we please. Don’t bad mouth the permanent run. Everybody’s situation is different.
 
I have two covered runs next to each other. Both are about 12x30 feet. They each have a small covered patio area with roosts in case of rain etc... The ground is just covered with natural pine straw from the trees next to it.

Just redid this side as a rooster run the other day. Both sides hold OEG Bantams along with layers so netting is a must.

pen1.jpg
 
Tilhana said:
Whenever I see a static/permanent run, I can't help but think that if you have any sized garden, you're missing out on an opportunity to fertilize it, and you're also increasing your food costs by not providing an area where the chickens can forage.
Click to expand...

Depends. I use a poop shelf with PDZ and collect 5 gal buckets of pure chicken poop for the veggie garden beds. The birds also get to free range a couple of hours a day to supplement their diet.

With multiple dogs I wanted to provide the birds with a large safe run for the majority of the day, it would not be possible to do that with a portable pen.
 

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