The ATF Chicken Dome - Creating an easily movable run enclosure for our chickens

[kotoula]

Hi there! I purchased the wire and tools and now I am ready to make them. I am curious though: How did skunks get in? That is sort of worrisome. Will they hurt the chickens?

Also is there a particular reason why you need the mesh floor and do you think it would be ok to create a modified design without the floor? I am thinking of using metal hoops and laying the material over and stapling the sides down. What do you think?

Thank you
Rea

 

[jlmeredith]

We had our tunnels setup so that they could be moved with our geodesic dome. In order for them run of tunnels to flex with this movement, we had to have a small amount of gap between the tunnel pieces. Sometimes when we would move the tunnel, we would fail to tighten up the gaps by compressing the sections together. The skunks found these small gaps and made their way to the coop. This only happened a few times. The skunks do not bother the chickens, they are after their eggs, but the chickens will raise a ruckus when the skunk is in there.

The mesh floor is to give structure to the whole structure. Keeping in mind that I designed this method so that the sections could be moved, added and replaced. I see no reason your idea would not work. The key would be to ensure that you can full affix the edge to the ground so that they cannot slip under. Depending on if you are planning to move your tunnel around, this maybe an easy or hard thing. Some fabric staples or even some stakes with eyelets or something might work to hold the edge down. I am curious though when you say metal hoops and stapleing. Do you mean hoops as the arch structure and then attaching wood rails between the hoops and then stapling to the wood? If so, then yes, this should work. You would need a bottom rail for attachment and securing to the ground.

In then end, this was a project that I had to execute quickly and with almost no budget, lol. So I kept with the KISS principle. There are lots of other ideas out there for chicken tunnels, so dont be afraid to do some searching for google images of "chicken tunnels". You will notice that my design is not unique, Many others have built very similar if not the same design.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

 

[tmelber]

Thank you so much for posting this! I have been trying to find an easy way to build some extra structures without having to buy a whole bunch of stuff. Plus, I am not very confident when building things. Your design, directions, and pictures are exactly what I was looking for. My chickens- and my garden- say thank you!

 

[jewelg]

Heya- we are lining a kids’ climbing dome in HC and using that as our run space. In the future, I think I’ll go with Zip Tie Domes- this kids’ structure is heavy! So it won’t be a mobile part of our plan.

@jlmeredith, I wanted to ask you about the doors on your tunnel, specifically the vestibule. How are you attaching the tunnel, and How are you closing off the other door? Hardware cloth has such sharp poky edges, I’ve wrapped the cut ends in duct tape to keep humans and chickens from getting hurt. I know you’re using welded wire frame, not HC, and I like how you’ve wrapped the long sections around to hold the sides together, but I can’t imagine that’s also how you’re securing the door openings to the tunnels, or the doors to the door openings (when you need to close them). I’d love to know what your solution was. Thanks!