Chicken Runs – 3 Simple Tips to Building Chicken Runs

Chicken runs should be an essential part of your plan when raising chickens at home for the health and happiness of all of your flock. It will give them the chance to roam around freely, flap their wings and scratch about the place looking for food in a nice, safe and secure environment.

Chicken runs are very easy to construct and they take just a couple of hours to build using basic materials. There are plenty of chicken runs plans available nowadays online or in your local bookstore as the pastime has become very popular in the last few years. Below, I’ll outline some important things to consider when building portable chicken runs.

Chicken Runs Tips

Space – It really is essential for your chickens health and wellbeing to have plenty of space to run about, stretch their wings and scratch around in. Depending on the breed of chicken you are planning to raise, an average of roughly 5 feet for each chicken is fine, but obviously the more room you give them the better it will be for them.

Some people let their chickens run wild (free range), which is ideal of course but really makes finding any of the eggs they’ve laid a bit of a problem to locate. Even in a small garden chickens have the amazing ability to hide their eggs! I guess it’s a natural instinct to ensure the survival of the species but it can be a real pain if you’re out searching for eggs all over the garden in bad weather! As you can see, that’s what makes chicken runs so appealing when raising chickens.

It’s always best to move the chicken runs on to a fresh piece of ground each time so they can scratch for fresh insects, worms, green shoots etc. Try not to put it on a patch that has been used withing the last month or so. This will also help keep any disease down and will fertilise your backyard too, albeit in small sections at a time.

Protection – It really is essential to have a strong parameter fence surrounding the chicken runs. Dig it in about 12 to 18 inches deep all around the poultry runs and have it at about shoulder height to you. It can be made simply by using timber posts and running some good quality heavy gauge chicken wire between the posts. The point of this fence is to deter all but the most determined of chicken coop predators like foxes and weasels. If you make it too much hassle for them, they’ll go somewhere else for a taste of fresh chicken.

Chicken Coops – Have the chicken housing easily accessible from the chicken runs so that if at any stage the weather turns suddenly bad your birds can come and go from the chicken pens as they please. There’s no point having a chicken tractor if the birds are going to be stuck outside and exposed to the elements with no access to their coop.

Hopefully you’ll keep the above advice in mind when looking or planning your chicken runs.

Chicken Runs