We will be getting 20 baby chicks in September (praying that they all will be pullets since we can't find juvenile chickens anywhere and have to order babies) and we're wondering if our coop/run idea will be safe enough?
We have a roughly 800 to 1,000 square foot area that we can devote to the chickens, but we are on a shoestring budget and could never afford the hardware cloth needed to fully fence that area in. So, our plan is this: build an 8x8 coop with an 8x20 attached run. Both of these would be fully enclosed in hardware cloth from top to bottom with heavy duty tarps for rain protection and shade along with a 2 foot wide apron all around the bottom. Then, we would take several dog kennel panels that we already have on hand and construct a big pen area that would be attached to the coop and run that would make up the majority of the above mentioned square footage. That area would have 2x4 welded wire all across the top that would be braced throughout with some 4x4 posts, and the panels themselves would remain as is except for the hardware cloth that we would run up the bottom 3 feet of each panel to prevent predators from reaching through and would also have an apron all around using the 2x4 welded wire. We are always home so we can watch them during the day when they're out in this big pen area and they would always be locked up in the coop at night. On days that we have to be gone for errands and such, they would only be allowed to use the attached hardware cloth run and not have access to the big pen since we wouldn't be able to supervise them.
Thoughts?
We have a roughly 800 to 1,000 square foot area that we can devote to the chickens, but we are on a shoestring budget and could never afford the hardware cloth needed to fully fence that area in. So, our plan is this: build an 8x8 coop with an 8x20 attached run. Both of these would be fully enclosed in hardware cloth from top to bottom with heavy duty tarps for rain protection and shade along with a 2 foot wide apron all around the bottom. Then, we would take several dog kennel panels that we already have on hand and construct a big pen area that would be attached to the coop and run that would make up the majority of the above mentioned square footage. That area would have 2x4 welded wire all across the top that would be braced throughout with some 4x4 posts, and the panels themselves would remain as is except for the hardware cloth that we would run up the bottom 3 feet of each panel to prevent predators from reaching through and would also have an apron all around using the 2x4 welded wire. We are always home so we can watch them during the day when they're out in this big pen area and they would always be locked up in the coop at night. On days that we have to be gone for errands and such, they would only be allowed to use the attached hardware cloth run and not have access to the big pen since we wouldn't be able to supervise them.
Thoughts?
