Official BYC Poll: Is your RUN Covered or Not?

[Folly's place]

We have the coop and roofed run on an old building foundation, concrete, with a concrete floor that's cracked but usable. It started as a shed coop with a chicken wire run attached, on the 14' x 24' foundation, years ago. Now, it's a roofed structure (shingles) with part of the south and east sides covered in hardware cloth and 2" x 4' woven wire, and vinyl sheeting in winter. So, a coop/ run combination, with five 'rooms' that can be opened or closed off, depending. It's not how we would have built new, but it's grown, and works well.
Mary

 

[rayrose]

I'm in the process of building an 18 x 28 covered run with galvanized metal roofing that I'm waiting to be shipped. The run is wrapped in 1/2 inch hardware cloth. It's totally predator proof, with lots of fixed perches for my girls to use. They can sleep outside or inside.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

My coop is a converted shed and I built the run in front of it the first year. The last year I built an addition so they would have part of their run on the south facing side for warmth in the winter. The roof is corrugated metal except for one 2 foot section of UV protected PVC clear corrugated roofing to allow the sun in. Very few issues with mud in the run. Sometimes heavy snow melts or blowing rain will make it a little wet, but it stays relatively dry.

 

[tralfaz]

Even my 2x4 mesh can catch the snow and start to pile up,
but it's pretty easy to bang it off from underneath.
2x4 mesh should keep most coons out, but my coop is Fort Knox for nighttime, so I don't worry about it.

Can you pass on where you bought the mesh? Is

 

[aart]

Can you pass on where you bought the mesh?

2x4 welded wire mesh....typical stuff, can get it at most farm stores like TSC.

 

[BDutch]

Here you see my setup for 8 small bantams. I made a chicken guard between the coop and the run to keep them safe at night. Cause I don’t trust the partly hwc /partly netted run that much.

The first run used to be a party tent. The second one is build with construction wood. They hold well in winter too. Must say we do not have snow and cold for a long time in winter.

The cover of the laying boxes is against the heat of the sun ☀. The black material above it is epdm against leaking.

There is an opening between the 2 runs I can close. Handy sometimes like last year when I had 2 broodies in a separate nesting box in the second run.

I put a lot of greens in the run from the garden. Especially the leaves in autumn. Bc the brown leaves are good to get a healthy soil.

At first the clay ground was not permeable enough and I had a water problem after weeks of rain. I made holes of 1 meter deep, filled them with pebbles. And never had a water problem again.

 

[Karen Glatz]

I have a small coop and a 4x8 tarped hoop house for the feed and nest boxes. There is about 2000 sq ft fenced but not netted run area. I live in the city and have two crow nests in trees nearby so hawks are not a problem so far (the crows chase them away).

 

[Tashua]

Of course if money was no issue and you had an easy way to make it happen (no trees in the way) I’m sure most people would have a cover run.

However, what is your current run like? Covered/ uncovered, size and what is the floor/ bedding made up of?

*please feel free to add a photo of your setup!

 

[Tashua]

View attachment 2118289

So this is what we built .......predator apron & all I am hoping my chicks will love it. !!!

 

[WhiteWaterLady]

My chickens free-range over 10 acres. No way to cover that much ground!