So hopefully you are here because you are interested in becoming a chicken owner, whether it is for eggs, meat or just the fact that they are amazingly fun pets to have and make great gardeners. Like all pets, you need to make sure your chickens are healthy, happy and are safe from outside threats. A key component to make sure all you accomplish all of these things is having a proper chicken run. Before building your run you need to gather the right materials and tools, so hopefully I can help you with that in this article.
The first thing you should think about when deciding what kind of chicken run you need is where do you live? Whether you live in cold weather, warm weather, a rural or an urban setting all play a factor into what kind of chickens you should be raising and what kind of pen these chickens need. If you live in the city sometimes there will be restrictions on how many livestock you can own, and you may not be allowed to even own chickens. You will also likely need a permit to build the coop in your backyard if this is the case.
For the chicken run or pen area, it is very common to use just posts and wire. This is definitely the simplest design and can be completed easily in a day. You will need a hammer, wire cutters, a crowbar and a sledgehammer for tools. And of course, posts and wire for the materials. Fence posts are usually bought in bundles bout if you go somewhere like the home depot you can usually buy single posts. When choosing your wire, you can go with chicken wire or stucco wire. Stucco wire is stronger and is usually used on the sides of the pens, where the chicken wire can be placed under the ground to prevent animals from digging up.
Normal staples can be used to hook the wire into your fence posts. There are not any special type of staples for this job, so just get a staple gun and attach it with your standard staples. Staples are pretty inexpensive so don’t skimp out on your pen, use a lot and make sure your wire is not going anywhere. A crowbar is a good tool for loosening the dirt where you want to dig your post hole. After loosening the dirt, use a shovel or post digger if you have one to dig down for your post. The higher your post is, the farther you will want to dig to make sure it is sturdy. Lastly, use a sledgehammer to pound the post into the hole.
The Author:
John Locke
Photo. Chickenman
Source: Ab