Topic: Basic chicken run construction questions!

[Mrs Gumboot]

Hey guys, wanting to pick your collective brains if I may?

Hoping that 2011 will be the year of the chooks, but have a couple of reservations, particularly in terms of attracting rats. We're on the edge of a school & already have a bit of a problem (think we've got yet another one in the garage). I'm a little worried that getting chooks in with all their food will just make it worse.

So, how do I manage to construct a run that doesn't allow one of the wiliest pests in the world in to nibble all the grain & pass on who knows what?

I'll be building it from scratch as it's got to go in a particular area of the garden, in a particular shape! Have a short wall on one side & will need to build another on the other side to level the area off. Am I best to build the wall to finished floor height & then bury chicken wire against it to stop them climbing in or will they make it through that?

I'm also a little concerned about how the neighbours will take it. They'll be going on the side of the garden which has no neighbours and they're about as far from other properties as I can make it, but does anyone have any experience of problems with neighbours in terms of the noise? Would only be probably three girly chooks by the way, don't want no noisy boys!

Sorry guys, that's a lot of questions, but want to plan this out properly & not end up getting in a mess!

[grannyjanny]

We have chooks at home in a 8x12' run. OH buried the wire 1' underground so the foxes etc can't get in. It also has a roof on. We bought the coop & what a mistake
that was. The perches are lower than the nest box, if the whole thing was higher up on legs it might be better. I chicken sit ;D for our friends as they go away for several weeks at Christmas & they have an Eglu. What a dream that is to clean out. If I could find one locally on ebay I would try to get it. Food is kept in dustbins & there is no sign of rats. We have 4 Plymouth Rock bantams & 2 Speckeldy's. The PR think they are just there to look pretty, which they do but no eggs since last August. Speckeldy's are fine even laying the odd one over the cold spell. I've just taken porridge for the girls over the road & there were 3 eggs from 3 girls. The porridge & corn is working.
HTH a little.

[sunloving]

Hi
How exciting, I have three bantams in the garden in a run thats around 30ft by 15ft which is partitoned into two so that i can re seed one side when they are in the other.
I would be less worried about rats that foxes as you can take away the food dish every night to a higher spot and keep the big food bag in a pastic dustbin away from the coop. Foxes are mostly nocturanal and so long as the girls a are locked up at night then you should be okay.
I converted one of my shed by taking out the bottom foot and putting it on stilts and having a rickety ramp to a high window to stop the fox being able to get in.

Thing is its to big really, try to make sure that you can reach easily every spot in your coop. I have to use a broom to clean it! 
I had net up over the top for the first few months whislt they got used to the ramps as they will panic and roost in the trees if they cant do it before dark. But these are down now

Last thing spread 0.5%pyrethrum ant power each time you clean and see if you can find a furniture maker to supply you with free wood shavings.

x sunloving

My three girls are sussex bantams and give me around two eggs a day even now.
good luck

[grannyjanny]

If you want create usable waste as I do I put hemcore down & it goes straight into the composter. Rots down very quickly.

[jonny211]

Regarding rats just hang the feeders a couple of feet from the ground via the run roof or bottom of the house if it's raised, chickens have quite a neck on them especially when it comes to reaching for food.

My hens are pretty quiet, only noise (above chicken chit chat) being when an egg is laid then they like to announce it to the world. 

[landimad]

Having never kept birds other than on the farm as a kid, the only tip I can offer is to dig down around the edge of the run about a foot or two so as you get the wire down into the ground and help deter the foxes digging under and getting to valuable livestock.

[Mrs Gumboot]

Cheers guys, I knew you'd be helpful  ;D

Figured we'd have to go down a little way as fox deterrent. Haven't seen any round here since we moved in but the playing fields next door run into a fairly large area of scrubby ground along a beck & I'd be willing to bet there's a fair few around. Just cos I ain't seen em don't mean I want to take a chance!

Thanks for the coop advice! Have had a look at the eglus when the idea first raised its head, but at the price they charge it would have to be a second hand one. Will keep an eye out & see if a bargain can be had, but otherwise it'll be whatever I can cobble together from bits of wood or an old modified shed!

Hmmm. 30x15 would probably take over half the garden. Would like to allow them out and about during the day into the garden proper. How much damage do they really do? My little bit of internet research suggests that the feathery legged varieties dig much less. Anyone able to back this up? Although having said that they'd be on the wrong side of the veggie patch. Maybe not such a great idea!

[GodfreyRob]

Cheers guys, I knew you'd be helpful  ;D

Figured we'd have to go down a little way as fox deterrent. Haven't seen any round here since we moved in but the playing fields next door run into a fairly large area of scrubby ground along a beck & I'd be willing to bet there's a fair few around. Just cos I ain't seen em don't mean I want to take a chance!

Thanks for the coop advice! Have had a look at the eglus when the idea first raised its head, but at the price they charge it would have to be a second hand one. Will keep an eye out & see if a bargain can be had, but otherwise it'll be whatever I can cobble together from bits of wood or an old modified shed!

Hmmm. 30x15 would probably take over half the garden. Would like to allow them out and about during the day into the garden proper. How much damage do they really do? My little bit of internet research suggests that the feathery legged varieties dig much less. Anyone able to back this up? Although having said that they'd be on the wrong side of the veggie patch. Maybe not such a great idea!

I think you will find that rats can easily get through standard fencing wire (the rats round here certainly do-they can nibble holes in it and squeeze through the smallest gap).
Weld mesh is much better and not that much more expensive if you just use it for the lower half of the fencing.

As for letting them out to roam round your garden, I really would not do it. They will wreck it in no time. They love to scratch around with their clawed feet! 

If you can make 2 smaller runs that you can alternate access too. When one gets a little battered let them into the other so it can recover. Don't forget grass does not grow at all during the winter months (November-March/April) either- so aim to go into the winter with as much grass as you possible can - good grass means good coloured egg yolks!

[Morris]

My lovely brother-in-law built me a combined run/roost/nest box thing.  It is basically like a shed, 6' x 8', with a ridged felt roof.  This whole area is for their run as the nest box/roost is raised up.  Three sides are netting, and the back wall is wood.  Attached to the back wall is a long wooden box, divided in half, about 2.5' off the ground, one side with perch for roosting and the other side flat for a nest box.  Both sides had doors but I took off the door to the nest box as it was a nuisance.  The whole front section of the box is hinged and flaps down for cleaning.  There are ramps for the chooks to climb up - though they just hop and flap up to the nest box which is now more open.  It is on concrete because that was where I had to put it, which makes it totally rat and fox proof.  I hope you can visualise it, I don't know how to do diagrams!

I thought I'd let them out to run around the garden.  Hah.  I love my garden more than the poor chickies, I am afraid.  After several disasters ("mummy, are the chickens meant to be in the cold frame?" off I go running out and the little dears had scoffed every single pea seedling and trampled the other stuff they didn't fancy  :'( :'( ) they only go out occasionally and strictly supervised.  But they actually seem very happy in their little space.  They get lots of greens/treats and the floor is kept deeply littered with aubiose (hemp horse bedding) and straw on top so they can always scratch around, which is what chickens like best.  

They do make a noise sometimes, even though all girlies.  They had a phase of practically crowing early every morning last summer, they woke me up at 4.30am.  (Because the whole thing is secure they put themselves to bed and get up with the daylight) I think they were just happy to be alive!  I went to ask the neighbours if they were bothered by them and they said no, they liked hearing them in general, and they hadn't woken them up.  

They don't smell, even in the summer.  The aubiose is fantastic for that.  

A rat catcher told me once a rat can get through anything bigger than an average man's thumb, and a mouse, a woman's thumb.  So the netting will need to be small to be rat-proof.

I hope that helps.  Chickens are fantastic.  Oh - I have four girls in that space.

[Robert_Brenchley]

When I was in Cornwall years ago we had a little run we used occasionally for a hen to raise chicks in. One day I got home; my mother had found a vast male rat which had got stuck in the netting (I think it was one-inch mesh), and she'd bashed it with a hammer. I disposed of the body for her. I imagine the beast had got in underneath, as it was a portable run sitting on some rather rough grass. A female or younger rat would have been smaller, and would have got through.

[bazzysbarn]

Dont forget to check your house deeds to see if you can keep them. We were not allowed in our garden so they are on the allotment now which is a bit of a pain at times. Next time we move will check that out first!! Then see if the house is ok!!!!

[birdsrfun]

Was reading article in new chicken mag. yesterday, they now recommend 2sq metres per bird (large type) not 1sq m. as it was some years ago. Things are getting better.

[Robert_Brenchley]

Dont forget to check your house deeds to see if you can keep them. We were not allowed in our garden so they are on the allotment now which is a bit of a pain at times. Next time we move will check that out first!! Then see if the house is ok!!!!

Don't take what's in the deeds for gospel; the courts won't enforce anything which isn't reasonable. When I was in Cornwall, the deeds said that we couldn't hang out washing or grow vegetables in the front garden, which faced what was originally the local pit owner's house. We were advised that it was completely unenforceable, and should be ignored.

[Mrs Gumboot]

Dont forget to check your house deeds to see if you can keep them.

Problem with that is that the mortgage company have the deeds. The house was built around 1900 on an adjacent parcel of land to a farm so I shouldn't imagine that they'd be bothered about chooks. The garage has a hay loft for goodness sake!