The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: Missy on April 02, 2022, 10:43:35 am
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Does anyone have any good ideas for inexpensive DIY or bought chicken runs that can be moved. We are new to hens.
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Have you considered Flexi net electric fencing? Doesn't have to be connected up to a battery unless you have fox issues. Just set it up and use as a regular fence and move onto fresh ground as necessary. A 25 m length set up in a square would be just enough for 3 hens as long as it is moved regularly. Site the hen house in the middle of the square. If you clip the hens wings then they wont fly over when excited ie when they see you coming with food :-)
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Remember that all poultry in the UK is still under lockdown restrictions, so all pens must be covered and inaccessible to wild birds.
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Problem we found with chicken runs is they are heavy and moving them around isn't easy. Best route, given Avian Flu is here to stay, is a permanent good sized covered walk-in run. An absolute minimum space per hen is 2m2. Then as suggested, a netted area that they can run around in when permitted. We confine ours to their runs in the morning, so they eat proper food and let them out into netted runs later. Otherwise egg production suffers, because they fill up with rubbish.
Runs are not cheap, even if you build your own and you may find that one bought isn't much more expensive than the cost of materials. Then there is the saving in time.
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You're right, Bird Flu is here to stay and if we continue to have lockdowns then birds will be spending half of each year under cover. That would mean the end of the Free Range egg market. I wonder at what point we will 'just learn to live with it' as with Covid-19, so our birds can run free again?
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Hi, I've been wondering a similar thing.. There appears to be literally 100s of different types from £150ish upto £1000+
Then there the materials they are made from various woods untreated and treated and then the plastic ones that look like spaceships on wheels. :o
How many birds are you thinking of ?
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You're right, Bird Flu is here to stay and if we continue to have lockdowns then birds will be spending half of each year under cover. That would mean the end of the Free Range egg market. I wonder at what point we will 'just learn to live with it' as with Covid-19, so our birds can run free again?
The regulations have been put there just to protect the commercial sector most of whom keep birds under cover anyway (think broiler houses, barn hens etc). Only a small percentage of the national commercial chicken population are allowed to "free range"and for the most part that is just a boring flat field.
Unless a vaccine is produced I cannot see a legal return to allowing birds to express natural behaviour in a stimulating environment year round any time soon. If you want to stick to the rules then accept that you will need to keep birds under cover for most of the year. Very hard on the birds and very hard for the keeper (with a conscience) to adhere to.
Out of interest I looked up what compensation someone would get if they had their birds culled due to a bird flu outbreak. There are various grades depending on what types of bird are kept, but for layers the highest price paid (for a healthy bird - they don't compensate for affected birds) is about £15 per bird at 18 weeks ie POL. Otherwise the price goes down for each week of a bird's life. So for my super fabulous flock of marans who currently are all about 3 years + but in high season lay almost every single day I would get about 20p per bird. It's an insult.
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Using commercial criteria on smallholders' flocks - not comparable.
We intend to reduce our flock to 3, by natural fall-off, but that will take longer than the summer months to achieve so we are currently trying to devise cheap, covered adaptable housing that we can afford to build and have the time to do. :hughen: but I'm going off keeping them!
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I have seen some great movable houses build up off trailer chassis. If its only moving round a field it doesnt need to be road worthy so something off Ebay or FB marketplace would do. We use electric fencing around our birds when they are allowed out. We have a large galvanised metal run for the chickens and one for the ducks but they very much prefer field/pond life
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I think the APHA needs to have a serious look at the balance of benefit of blanket lockdown rules for backyard flocks. The current ones cause other health and welfare issues, in the name of protecting birds' health (from AI only). Commercial operations are set up for 24hr housing (with access to the outside for so-called free range birds), many backyard ones are not.
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I had several government inspections for avian flu. I said I wouldn’t subject them to testing. I wouldn’t shut them up and I wouldn’t be covering their enormous pen. Vets were ok with this. It’s advice, not law.
I pointed out that migratory wildfowl, humans and their free ranging domestic birds have likely been coexisting here for millennia without plastic roofing or foot scrub baths. It’s a minute risk which I’m willing to take for the welfare of my birds and family.
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That's a really interesting take [member=28951]Steph Hen[/member]
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I had several government inspections for avian flu. I said I wouldn’t subject them to testing. I wouldn’t shut them up and I wouldn’t be covering their enormous pen. Vets were ok with this. It’s advice, not law.
I pointed out that migratory wildfowl, humans and their free ranging domestic birds have likely been coexisting here for millennia without plastic roofing or foot scrub baths. It’s a minute risk which I’m willing to take for the welfare of my birds and family.
I thought it was a legal requirement to keep poultry under cover just now. If someone can categorically tell me I'm not breaking the law by letting my four wyandottes out into their uncovered run then I'll do it tomorrow. Their undercover run gets saturated by driving rain (Like right this minute) when it's on so they stay in their shed a lot of the time, but if they are free they shelter against the wall of the house pecking along the path and under my balcony, thus being normal natural hens
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So Steph, what do you base your assessment on that Flockdown rules are advice, not law? I understood that during the first AI outbreak a few years ago, a woman was jailed for non-compliance.
I think all of us here would jump at the chance to let our hens free right now if we knew that we were not breaking the law or putting others' flocks at risk.
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I am responsible for my animals and felt what I was doing was adequate. That was the jist, it seemed to come to off setting between welfare and risk. I have sheds I could put them in which they liked the idea of, but I believe hens should get sunshine and access to soil, and they said that was fine. They seemed satisfied and no further visits. I did of course agree to notify animal health if there was any sign of ill health and thankfully there’s not been any. I’ve spoken to commercial free range farmers about it, some let their birds out one day a week as a compromise. I used to believe all rules were black and white and clear for everybody, but Much as with parties/work meetings with cheese and wine or trips to scenic towns/eye tests, there are grey areas. I am looking after my animals in accordance with my moral code and my judgement on private property, more than a mile from neighbouring flocks. 100,000 migratory birds are flying over everyday and have likely done every winter for millennia. The risk to neighbouring farms comes from these birds, not what my handful of poultry do. I don’t have legal advise just my own judgement and conversations and overwhelming responsibility to my birds and family. Do passerines even carry the disease? How will the British flock maintain health or develop immunity to new diseases if they are severely restricted and stressed for six months every year? What about the effect of this on egg quality and human health? My hens need access to green matter and compost in order to be sustainable, healthy and produce good eggs. I will not feed them purely on grain or processed food as I believe this is suboptimal and compromises their and my welfare, this my belief. Feeding them greens from the garden presumably carries the same risk of transmission as allowing them to graze. Anyone wondering about epigenetic effect on future generations of chickens? We feel guilt locking up our birds, knowing we compromise their welfare and this therefore compromises our welfare. People are reducing flocks at a time of growing food insecurity, I worry more about this and the threat to rare breeds. Are the lockdown rules even scientifically proved to be preventing/limiting outbreak or spread or is it purely theoretical? I have yet to read a review regarding the disease in the way it relates to these aspects and animal health didn’t seem too clear either. They did quite a bit of nodding and agreed there were more questions than answers, the system of lockdowns is unsustainable, would be negatively affecting businesses, people, animals and consumer health and was costing a lot of public money. They agreed that the rules technically applied to everyone but they are really designed for large scale poultry keepers and for back yard flocks welfare would come first. One vet said she didn’t think there would be poultry on the shelves from mid December onwards and had told her friends and family (and me) to buy their Christmas turkeys now. I believed her at first, but there was still British poultry on all shelves. :P I refuse to be subjected to constant fear mongering from all sides! They said geese were good at carrying the disease where as ducks were very susceptible- they’d likely be dead within 24 hours of contracting it, and yet I’m still seeing ducks in all the usual places, sometimes alongside the migratory geese. I’m therefore not convinced by much the experts come out with so do what I think is right. My poor neighbours hens were confined and contracted it and I’m sure they were in great health so take it to just be very much a matter of bad luck. The risk to human health and transmission is thought minimal so I don’t think I am causing risk to others in this way. I am a common woman and stand under common law. I am not causing harm to anyone else through my actions with my private property. :coat:
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Does anyone have any good ideas for inexpensive DIY or bought chicken runs that can be moved. We are new to hens.
On a different note, sorry for going SO off topic, I like little arks where the roosting area is above the daytime run. The roosting area can have a wire mesh floor so poo falls below. This keeps the weight and down, rather than having a wooden boxes in section. There’s plenty of air and birds like to be up. Mesh flooring of run stops predators digging under but prevents scratching, which is a bit sad. I don’t like hens in runs all the time where possible (could you guess?) so try to use such predator proof set ups within a larger fenced area or free range so they can sometimes experience the rest of the neiches they enjoy like dust baths and scratching through undergrowth, getting bugs and destroying my vegetable garden.
I don’t have one at the moment, but will try to made a sketch and upload.
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Bit like this?
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Thank you Steph for such a clear statement of how and why you are managing your flock. I do likewise, and likewise have had approval from my EMI for it, but have not hitherto had the courage to go public about it here because I don't want to discuss it further. If people read everything that the APHA put out, and not just the headlines, they'll probably find justification for what works for themselves and their flock.
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I totally agree with you both - Perris and Steph Hen.
And I like the little sketch Steph Hen - I have something very similar for my dutch bantams.
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Oh I so wish I had been a fly on the wall Steph when you had your visit :D You're an inspiration :hug: