Keeping Chickens

Build A Chicken Run - we decided to build a chicken run so the chickens can have a bit of extra space when we go out.

Building A Chicken Run

It’s ok having them wandering round the garden free range whilst we’re at home, but we’re a bit worried about leaving the chickens in the garden when we go out… Mr Fox has been seen prowling around, and there’s so many of our neighbours with chickens in their gardens that the temptation for ‘him’ may be too much.

We decided to build our run using only the scraps of wood and wire fencing / netting that we have laying around the garden. We’re intending spending a bit of money on a purpose made chicken run when we get the time, so this chicken run is just a temporary measure.

The chicken house came with a small chicken run underneath, but we feel that this chicken run area is just a little too small - we don’t want our chickens to be kept like ‘battery hens’, so we plan to give their chicken house a extension.

So laying around the garden we have a few sheets of marine ply, some old pallets and odds and sods of wood that we’ve built up since having the cabin put in last summer.

The home made chicken run that we’ve built isn’t pretty to look at, but it does the trick. It’s extended a area around the chicken house of about 8 foot by 5 foot and about 5 foot high. We’ve got some wire netting over the top and have made a kind of fence out of scaps of wood and wire fencing for one side. The other side’s wall is the edge of the cabin and the front of the chicken run is closed off with two pallets.

You have to ’stoop’ to get in and close the chicken house door at night, but the chicken run that we’ve added is pretty secure with any gaps filled with bricks and old turf dug up from the lawn when we put some steps in down the garden last week - the constant wandering back and forth to the end of the garden to the chicken house, had kind of left a ‘mud’ path down the middle which was unsightly.

So our home made chicken run has done the trick, it’s been in a couple of days now and we’ve had no escapees. It also allows us to let the dog out in the garden when we’re not out there. As I’ve mentioned before, he seems ok with the chickens if we’re in the garden, but I wouldn’t trust him to ‘behave’ if left out there with the chickens on his own.

The chickens don’t like being confined in their run whilst we’re not there. They’d prefer to have free range in the garden, but as I said earlier, it’s safer all round and we don’t have to worry about them whilst we’re out.

We’ve been and priced up a ‘rolls royce’ chicken run, it’s going to cost a few quid, but will mean we can let the chickens have a run that covers most of the back end of the garden, which hopefully in their eyes will be a pleasant place to peck, scratch, dust bath etc.

So go on; if you have the spare wood, see what kind of chicken run you can build. There’s something satisfying about building your own chicken run and not spending any money!

If you want to spend a bit of money on purpose built hardware and wood, check out the DIY bits and bobs at build a chicken run.

For various detailed plans and instructions on how to build a chicken run, I suggested checking out the Build A Chicken Coop book.