The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Community => Introduce yourself => Topic started by: Chickenlove on June 23, 2011, 12:20:44 pm

Title: Hello, New to the forum and can't wait to gather lots of useful information
Post by: Chickenlove on June 23, 2011, 12:20:44 pm

 :)

Hi from North Wales,  :wave:


Looking to build our first chicken run  :chook: :chook: :chook: :chook: :chook:
and ... getting lots of advice first.   Any help on how to build the perfect stand up friendly run would be greatly appreciated.  Also will be browsing help with choosing a good chook, even if a rescue bird.  We are not looking to eat the chooks, just to introduce them to the garden, and have eggs everyday  ::)

Title: Re: Hello, New to the forum and can't wait to gather lots of useful information
Post by: Frieslandfilly on June 23, 2011, 12:29:09 pm

Hello and welcome :)

Title: Re: Hello, New to the forum and can't wait to gather lots of useful information
Post by: doganjo on June 23, 2011, 12:57:54 pm

Welcome to the forum.  I don't think there is a perfect chicken run.  Advice from my own experience is make the coop high enough to stand up in(I use a garden shed), make the floor waterproof and eaily removed and hosed down (I use vinyl), give them perches (some like to perch, others like to sleep and poop in the nesting box).  Make the run as big as you can and divide it in two if you can - two sheds is also a good idea so you can move them if you get an infestation of beasties. I use cheap lap fence panels from B & Q, with a gate at teh end. Two of mine jump onto the four foot fence then over into the paddock so I have to check and put them in if I want the dogs out.  Also make sure the floor of teh run is lid in soemthing you can easily clean - mine started as grass, ended as bare earth, then the rains came and it turned to mud, now we have laid terram over it and 20ml gravel.  Hopefully i can now hose it down if necessary.  HTH

Title: Re: Hello, New to the forum and can't wait to gather lots of useful information
Post by: Rosemary on June 23, 2011, 04:45:57 pm

Hi and welcome from stormy Carnoustie  :wave:

For a few hens, I'd go for a moveable ark rather than a fixed run, then you can move them to fresh grass every day or two.

Title: Re: Hello, New to the forum and can't wait to gather lots of useful information
Post by: faith0504 on June 23, 2011, 06:03:24 pm

hi and welcome from moray  :wave:

Title: Re: Hello, New to the forum and can't wait to gather lots of useful information
Post by: darkbrowneggs on June 23, 2011, 06:18:29 pm

Hi there and welcome  :wave:  from Sue in Worcestershire

Title: Re: Hello, New to the forum and can't wait to gather lots of useful information
Post by: Hilarysmum on June 24, 2011, 08:23:32 am

Hi welcome from Brittany.  Our hens free range, despite many attempts to restrict them.  They universally prefer the big hen coop (our house) to anything we provide.  Many is the night we have had to remove a hen from Digby's bed.  Always a dangerous place to sleep!!!!

Title: Re: Hello, New to the forum and can't wait to gather lots of useful information
Post by: SallyintNorth on June 27, 2011, 12:12:45 pm

Welcome from north Cumbria.  Our hens also free range (although have not discovered the farmhouse has an indoors, thankfully!)  We've foxes about and have found that the hens are safer perching on stacks of bales in the barns than in an enclosed run they can't escape from.  And the cattle keep them warm in winter!

If I did have to enclose them I would site the run where I can put a good electric fence all around it and keep the wire clear of grass so it doesn't short out.