[Chickenlove]

 

Hi from North Wales, 


Looking to build our first chicken run 
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 

[Frieslandfilly]

Hello and welcome

[doganjo]

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

[Rosemary]

Hi and welcome from stormy Carnoustie 

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.

[faith0504]

hi and welcome from moray 

[darkbrowneggs]

Hi there and welcome    from Sue in Worcestershire

[Hilarysmum]

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!!!!

[SallyintNorth]

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.