Open Topped Chicken Yards?

[grandiose]

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Sorry, I thought my question was in my first post....


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Perhaps it was missed in my initial message, but that is what I am looking for...information on making a chicken yard. Experiences of people who have done it...would you do it again, what worked well, what would you never repeat? What materials did you use? Metal posts? Wooden posts? Buried wire or no? Things like that.

 

[MVchickens]

I have a 20x40ft open chicken yard. It has 6ft high sides. I have had no problems with predators, my only problem is them jumping the 4ft sheet of plywood I have as a gate... I also have a brush pile for them to hide in.

 

[fireguy56]

Hi, Good luck weeding through all of the helpful ideas and suggestions on this site. Everyone has their own stories, thoughts, misfortunes. I for one have spent too much time and money....plus having become so attached to our girls to trust an open top run. We both work.....we both go on trips....we both go to the grocery store or a movie. The owls, hawks, vultures and other bad guys don't. They will eat your chickens......matter of time. Just my humble opinion. good luck.
Erik

 

[kristenm1975]

Well, when I lived on Whidbey Island in WA state, I had a nice large open top pen for my hens. Some of the lightweight ones (Sicilian Buttercup, Phoenix, Sebright etc) flew the coop immediately. Fortunately, they also were flighty enough to avoid the coyote attacks that followed, but were the devil to get out of the tops of the thorny brush around there afterward.

What finally decided me on covering the whole thing was a couple of high speed owl attacks that took out a bunch of my little pullets, fresh to the coop from the brooder, who hadn't figured out that they needed to be inside after dark.

The cheap solution was to buy a couple packs of jute or something similar (nice, coarse ropey stuff that's also not too thick or expensive) and string it back and forth at about two inches between strands, covering the whole yard. If you think that sounds like it would take hours, you're about right. But it was cheap and effective. I didn't lose any more birds after that.

 

[CapricornFarm]

people living in the city think they don't have predators because they don't see them. Trust me, they are there. The worst being dogs because they kill every chicken in sight. I bet there are raccoons where you live, and many other predators that can climb or fly over fences. But they are your chickens. You might be lucky for a while.

 

[coloradonewbie]

Four feet high MAY not be tall enough -- we clip our chickens' wings, and until we put up a higher barrier, we had one red star that would greet me at the back door in the morning -- none of the others ever got out, but . . . .

That said, she's older now (and thus heavier) and we're thinking about taking the top barrier down. We only stuck those green metal stakes in the yard and ran chicken wire around it for their little 'chicken yard.' The girls all peck at the door of their predator-proof pen (with the hen house in it) to get out in the morning, and then they all collect at the chicken yard gate to be allowed into the larger (mush more interesting, full of grass and lovely bugs) yard. They're allowed out in the backyard only when I'm home, since otherwise they'd undoubtedly destroy our gardens, etc., but we do let one of the dogs roam around freely when they're out there. We have trees in all the neighbors' yards, as well as in our own, and we know that we're taking a chance letting them stay out in the chicken yard, so it's still a gamble. They can go back in their pen whenever they want to, but of course a predator could also follow them back into the pen as well . . . .

One thing I'd suggest, from personal experience, is to make it very easy for YOU to get in and out of the chicken yard! We haven't been through a winter with the girls yet, but until we jury-rigged an easier system than we had at first it was simply a pain to go in, scoop the poop out of the pen's sand, water and feed, etc.

Sigh. It's still a gamble, though -- and if a hawk or an owl or something else does kill one, we'll probably rethink our 'open sky' policy. They all LOVE being free in the yard, though . . . .

So, I'd say that it depends on your particular circumstance -- good luck!

 

[schmism]

if you lock them up in a coupe every night, they need no roof covered run.


99% of integrated coups and runs use a door thats open to the run 100% of the time, so you HAVE to roof the run in order to keep predators out of the coupe at night.

The only real predator you face in an open top run is birds of pray. But given cover for the birds to dive under, they will stay out of the way of the birds of pray.

we free range our flock on our 5 acers. Late in the afternoon its common to see them a good 100yds out into the front yard/pasture. We keep a rooster because he significantly changes the flock dynamic. He spends 10% of the time looking at the ground foraging and 90% of the time looking around. you've never seen a flock make a dash to the tree line quicker when he sounds the alarm because he spots a bird of prey in the distance.

I thought it was odd that my girls were scratching around in the barn, but 10 min later my lab scared up a bird of prey at the tree line by the creek, they new it was there and were in the barn for a reason.

 

[Pharm Girl]

I have an 11ft. x 35ft. chicken run surrounded by a 6ft. fence on all sides. They have small covered runs within the open area and bushes to hide under. I didn't realize full sized chickens would be eaten by hawks. We have hawks flying over ALL day long and I've never had a problem, but we have tons of moles and mice around also. Maybe the hawks are well fed. At any rate, I've never lost one to an arial predator, though they are locked into the fortresses at sundown.
All I can say, is I haven't had a problem, but I guess that's not to say I couldn't!

 

[KandiandJerry]

HAWKS will get them if you don't close the top in....I wouldn't chance it...

 

[Carolyn252]

As a matter of fact, I am considering getting some plastic construction fencing and some long inexpensive tomato stakes, to build a temporary 'yard' around my garden so I can let the chickens loose in there every once in a while.

That's what we did. Worked out fine so far. We let them out to free range inside this chicken yard every single day; summer and winter. Only time we don't let them into their yard is if we leave the house knowing that we won't be back before dusk to lock them into the coop for the night.

I cut the fencing and used a long flap of it to overlap to the next tomato stake, so that I'd have an entranceway into and out of the yard. I just clip it closed with an ordinary clothespin. I deliberately made the entranceway wide enough for the lawn mower to fit through so the chicken yard could get mowed.

Most weeks the lawn mower does both inside and outside the chickens' yard by getting up close to the fence; this results in some grass growing extra long up into the fencing. So once a month, we pull up the tomato stakes, roll up the green plastic construction fencing, and that fenceline of tall grass gets mowed down along with the rest of the lawn.

The tomato stakes are those green plastic looking stakes from Home Depot. They have metal tips hidden inside the plastic so that they can be pushed into the ground. (One end is pointy, the other is not.) After a few times of removing them and then hammering them back into the ground, the tips either got bent, or broke off completely, or the whole stake warped into a curve. They're not very well made.

To attach the stakes to the fencing, we simply weave the stakes in and out of the fenceing's little square holes and then push the stake into the ground. That keeps the fence upright and looking good... until it kinda starts to sag and look floppy. When that happens, I horizontally weave a stake into the fence's very top row of square holes.

The green plastic fencing blends in with the grass very nicely. I saw a post on here once with a photo of someone's chicken yard enclosed by bright orange plastic fencing and the post was about a neighbor complaining that it was unsightly.​