Wanting to do an easy run extension for overhead predator protection

[linguini]

Thank you for this, super helpful! I can’t quite tell in the photo - is it open so they have the option to get out or is it fully secured with the deer netting? That’s pretty much exactly what we want. Just curious how you get into it!

The photo earlier was taken with the "gate" open. The extended run has a gate (lousily made, but it works, I just use a long drive-way stake (6 ft long) to hold the net, and I use three s-hooks to make a latch for the gate.

There are two runs - the cube (connected to coop), and the extended run. The cube is fully secured with chicken wire and hardware cloth completely covered and aproned with hardware cloth on the ground. The extended run is covered and fenced in with the deer net and bird net combo, mainly to keep the chickens in and the hawks out.

When the cube door is opened, the chickens can go out to the extended run.
I also made an inner fence as a divider between two parts of the lawn, and the inner fence can be closed to either side of the red door, so when the chickens go out of the red door, I can choose which part of the lawn they can go to.

I will take more pictures when I get home (we are out of town for the weekend - first time since Covid!) so the chickens are in the cube-coop for a couple days home alone! )

Below is a photo taken in the winter when we had 2-3 ft snow on the ground. It's quite a mess, but chickens were still happy to be out even if they could only stand on the pallet! If you look carefully, you can see the inner divider to the right of the red door. The chickens in the photo were in the "lower" lawn. If I close the inner fence to the left of the door, the chickens can go to the "upper lawn". We also put a tarp on the cube to keep rain and snow out of the cube. First time chicken parents, learned one step at a time.

P.S. if you look carefully, on the very right side edge of the photo, the gate of the extended run is closed. The orange stake is attached with s-hook on the t-post. i simply use cable ties to hold the s-hook to the t-post. A total hack. But it works for my purpose!

 

[MrsTush]

We did the same. Last November, we built an extended area (~40x50) around the coop+run using 8-ft t-post (with the metal post driver/pounder it's easy to put in the posts), and covered half of the top with deer net till I found the 25x50 bird net (much much easier! ). We fenced up all around with deer net and plastic ground nails to hold down the net (also easy to do). Overall pretty low costs and easy to do, and can be removed easily as well.

The photo was taken in November, the posts and nets are not as straight and tight now after all the winter storm/snow, but they all still stand up pretty well. We added another coop attached to the cube earlier this year after this photo.

I'm glad somebody found that net easy. I wanted to scream

 

[linguini]

I'm glad somebody found that net easy. I wanted to scream

I only wish I had found the birdnet earlier! It'd saved me the laborious job of stitching the deer net together to cover up the yard!

Below is a picture I took from my window today. The red door was open to the lower lawn and the home-made gate of the yard was closed with s-hooks as latch! I wish we have chainlink gate - but just the gate panel alone costs $100. this low tech hack seems to do the job!

 

[MrsTush]

I only wish I had found the birdnet earlier! It'd saved me the laborious job of stitching the deer net together to cover up the yard!

Below is a picture I took from my window today. The red door was open to the lower lawn and the home-made gate of the yard was closed with s-hooks as latch! I wish we have chainlink gate - but just the gate panel alone costs $100. this low tech hack seems to do the job!

I've got more net coming tomorrow but a different kind. Hopefully it will be easier.

 

[charlotte-and-the-bees]

I only wish I had found the birdnet earlier! It'd saved me the laborious job of stitching the deer net together to cover up the yard!

Below is a picture I took from my window today. The red door was open to the lower lawn and the home-made gate of the yard was closed with s-hooks as latch! I wish we have chainlink gate - but just the gate panel alone costs $100. this low tech hack seems to do the job!

Okay finally working on this today! I like what you have with the rope. Is that to give a little more hold for the bird net?

 

[linguini]

Okay finally working on this today! I like what you have with the rope. Is that to give a little more hold for the bird net?

yes!
Also - some TSC have 8ft t-posts, it works better for those who are tall! We used 7 ft for most parts of it till we found the 8 ft ones.

 

[charlotte-and-the-bees]

yes!
Also - some TSC have 8ft t-posts, it works better for those who are tall! We used 7 ft for most parts of it till we found the 8 ft ones.

Awesome! Okay sorry to spam you with questions...how do you have the ropes attached? I want to make sure if a hawk or eagle comes down they don't pull down all of the poles with it.

 

[linguini]

Awesome! Okay sorry to spam you with questions...how do you have the ropes attached? I want to make sure if a hawk or eagle comes down they don't pull down all of the poles with it.

Since our run is simply a cubical frame, we ued knots from the cubical corner and to each t-post. I think there are some metal cable lines you can get from home depot that'll probably do a better job. We simply went with what we had on hand.
We also used the ropes between t-posts to hold up the bird nets. And I used a few cable ties to secure the top nets to the side deer nets to keep the bird net from flying off.

I tied a lot of metallic tapes on the net and ropes so that hawks can see that there are nets and shining objects. Not sure if those are actually effective in keeping the hawks off, but so far no hawks have attacked the nets nor the fence net yet! We do see the hawks sitting on nearby trees or even on our lawn sometimes!