Build a Chicken House Run
Saturday, December 12th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed
A chicken pen, sometimes called a hen run is the protected outdoor area attached to the coop, where the hens can roam safely while they forage, hunt for bugs and get the fresh air they need. It also keeps the hens away from your prized flowers!
Pens are designed to give poultry plenty of room to move about because birds that are overcrowded tend to stress themselves more easily and can stop laying. Hens need space, the more the better, although this will depend largely on the backyard. The chicken pen should have plenty of green vegetation growing in it for the chickens to forage, otherwise they will need daily feeding. Remember that hens also need access to water, because they tend to sweat easily especially in summer. If their beaks are open and their wings splayed, they need a drink.
Chickens are domestic creatures that are easy targets for many types of predator, including raccoons, weasels, foxes, hawks, rodents and neighborhood dogs and cats. It is up to you to provide proper protection for your hens, so your chicken run must be designed to give them a safe environment while they go about their daily activities.
There is nothing difficult about a hen pen, but it has to be well-made. For instance, if the wire mesh is not buried sufficiently in the ground, rats will be able to burrow under it and get into the hen house. Then you will miss out on those nice fresh eggs for breakfast! This is where you should think about getting some tips and advice from experts knowledgeable in how to build a chicken house run and keeping and rearing hens.
Examine the edges of the pen often, because it is not unknown for foxes or dogs to gnaw away at the wire over time to make a big enough hole to get in. Friends of ours positioned their coop and pen so that they could be seen from the kitchen table, a lesson learnt from sad experience.
Consider installing some sort of drainage for the hen run too. hens can make their pen quite messy after a while, which will be aggravated by wet weather. If possible, try to site the pen on slightly sloping ground, which will help to overcome the problem. Some chicken keepers put tarpaulins or even permanent roofing over their runs but this can be expensive and is not really needed if the pen is large enough.
An alternative to a fixed pen could be to build a chicken tractor or portable chicken coop, sometimes also known as a chicken ark. This is a small structure, usually triangular in cross-section, which combines a coop or nesting box with an attached run. The tractor can be moved around to give the chickens a constant source of new insects and vegetation, and to preserve your backyard. It also gives your garden free fertilizer! However, because the tractor has to be mobile it tends to be quite small, perhaps 6 to 8 feet long and 4 or 5 feet wide, so is suitable for only a few hens at a time. A chicken tractor is very cheap and easy to make, however, so you could consider having several dotted around your backyard if you have many hens.
From experience it makes sense to get expert advice before making your chicken run, unless you are familiar with space, feeding, shelter and health requirements for keeping poultry. None of it is complicated, but you owe it to your chickens to keep their living environment safe and comfortable. They will pay you back with a regular supply of tasty free-range eggs.
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