It just dawned on me while I was designing a pergola for the deck(pipe dream), why wouldn't this work over the chicken run also..? The deck at times becomes too hot to enjoy and putting up a pergola will help.... hmmmm... I haven't built my coop and run yet. Granted my run will only be 8' wide so I could easilly run 8' 2x's or even run 10' 2x's to have a foot overhang on the ends. I know that the wider the board the more shade in goin to cast down. Maybe for the run using 2x8's would do the trick or maybe even 2x6's if you space them a lil closer. now that I think about it, this is starting to sound pricey. I just thought that even thou it's not full shade like a solid roof, but that a lil bit of sun and a lil bit of shade wouldn't be a bad idea.....any thoughts? Actually, has anyone done this?
we have no shade at all for our 12x24 run so we bought a shade cloth on line to shade half.. works great. rain can fall through and the breeze can blow so it doesn't get hot on them..
I bet they'd like that. Keep winter in mind while designing it though, snow can get pretty heavy and it's not fun to have a structure crash. I would like to do something similar with mine and plant grapes on it. I haven't quite figured out the logistics yet though since my coop/pen is in the same pasture as the cows so I'll have to protect the vines from them.
Remember that a lot of what you want to protect against is not just overhead sun but sun to one side or the other, especially from the west (b/c afternoon is the hotter part of the day). So just an overhead shade is not adequate. You will want either lattice or something like that on the W side, or perennial vine cover (I say perennial b/c if you rely on annuals your chickens will not have much or any shade in the first half of the summer when the vines have not grown up much yet!), or shadecloth. I am a great big shade cloth fan myself -- it is relatively inexpensive compared to the other options, and very simple to use, and does not flap in the wind like tarps, and when installed vertically or nearly vertically it also provides pretty decent reduction of windblown rain coming into your run. Good luck, have fun, Pat
