A chicken run or pen is the protected outdoor area attached to the coop, where the chickens can roam safely while they forage, hunt for bugs and get some sunshine. It also keeps the chickens away from the prized blooms in your garden!
Pens are intended to give hens plenty of room to move about because birds that are overcrowded get stressed and more aggressive towards each other, and can stop laying eggs. Hens need space, the more the better, although this will inevitably depend on the area of backyard available for them. The hen pen should have plenty of green vegetation growing in it for the chickens to forage, otherwise they will need daily feeding. Remember that chickens also need access to water, because they tend to sweat easily especially in warm weather. 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 cats and dogs. It is up to you to provide proper shelter 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 chicken run, but it needs to be made properly. For instance, if the wire mesh is not buried sufficiently in the ground, rodents will be able to dig underneath and get access to the hen house. No fresh eggs for breakfast for you! This is where you should think about getting some tips and advice from experts knowledgeable in keeping and rearing hens.
Look at the wire mesh on a regular basis, because it is not unknown for foxes or dogs to gnaw away at the wire over time to make a large enough access hole.
Friends of ours positioned their coop and pen so that they could be seen from the kitchen table, a lesson learnt from bitter experience.
Plan on installing some sort of drainage for the chicken pen as well. Chickens can make their pen quite messy after a while, made worse 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 pens but this can be expensive and is not really needed if the pen is large enough.
Another alternative is to build a chicken tractor or portable chicken coop, sometimes also known as an 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 hens a constant source of new insects and vegetation, and to save your yard from being scratched bare. It also gives free fertilizer for your garden! However, because the tractor has to be moveable it can be quite small, perhaps 6 to 8 feet long and 4 or 5 feet wide, so is suitable for only 5 or 6 chickens at a time. A chicken tractor is very cheap and easy to make, however, so you could consider having several spaced around your garden if you have lots of hens.
It is sensible to get expert advice before making a hen pen, unless you are experienced in space, feeding, shelter and health requirements for keeping hens. Putting up a chicken run is very straightforward but, if you don’t know what you’re doing, it is so easy to underestimate what your chickens need to survive and prosper. They will pay you back with a regular supply of lovely free-range eggs.
Author: Kieran Gracie
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