Run/ wood choice?

[MrsNorthie]

I'm thinking of making a bunch of 6ft by 3ft panels, using a wooden frame with overlapping butt joints and hardware cloth stapled on the frame. Think an old fashioned screen door, but maybe lighter weight. We'll make a good many and assemble them into a run attached to the coop.

Can I get by with 1x2's cut out of my old cedar fence pickets as the material for the frame? Do I need to use 2x lumber or double up the 1x2's or go to 1x3's?

What's strong enough?

Thinking t-posts but I also have a bunch of old 5ft long 4x4 posts.

We're trying to skip the painful learning experiences of losing our flock to predators by building sufficiently to begin with. But I also try to repurpose...

We are using 8ft 4x4 posts, that go 2ft into the ground, with 2x4s and framing hangers, but we built a really big run and are expanding. Our chickens are basically free ranging within safe boundaries. lol We also wanted it to be sturdy for strong winds.

 

[R Wind]

We are using 8ft 4x4 posts, that go 2ft into the ground, with 2x4s and framing hangers, but we built a really big run and are expanding. Our chickens are basically free ranging within safe boundaries. lol We also wanted it to be sturdy for strong winds.

Sounds like a good plan. We wanted to be able to move ours to another property. So burying posts was not our choice.

FWIW. 40yrs ago a neighbor who had farmed for decades said they always set their fence posts in compacted sand (watered in around the buried portion of the post), not cement. We took that advice, and later all the neighbors' posts in cement snapped off during a high wind storm ( aka tornado in the area ). Ours stood.

Plus the next fence we put in here stood for 30years, built the same, the bottom of the posts didn't rot from water standing on the concrete shoulder. Only the posts up against a concrete pad/terrace showed damage to speak of when we pulled them, and we have used the non damaged wood in the coop. If posts are to be buried, consider sand to fill the hole.