Chicken Run

Recently, the little chicken ladies turned seven months old. Now that they are older and officially comfortable with their surroundings one of their favorite things to do is go exploring. They are always out on the prowl to find new places to scratch, peck for snacks, and take dirt baths. When they first were placed outside they were timid. Always stayed in a group and usually remained in one small portion of the yard. Not anymore! They each have developed their own personalities and do not mind at times breaking off from the group to do their own thing.
  At first, Cory and I were fine with this because they always found their way back to the coop at dusk. We would leave them out for a while when we ran errands so they were free ranging for most of the day which they enjoyed. This was all until I encountered the fox and we realized they were getting into things that they should not be. For example, they loved laying and eating all of the flowers out of the flower pots I had put together. Which I was not very fond of! Haha. We decided it was time for fencing. Our goal was to create an area around the coop that was large enough for the chickens to range in. With that in mind, right now since we are around the house when they are outside we were not building a fence to keep predators out but more to keep the chickens in. Eventually, we will develop our fencing more with bird netting etc. to keep predators out but we wanted to create a basic fencing foundation first.
      Fencing can be quiet expensive if you have to purchase everything for the store, however, it is still an option! Luckily for us, Cory is very creative when it comes to projects like this so we were able to do this at an affordable cost. The fencing itself we found for free. The wire portion we found at our local town transfer station; someone had graciously set it aside! We also incorporated some wooden fencing that was set out for free in the neighborhood. The fence posts, Cory had cut down small trees from the back woods earlier in the year. To create a gate, we will be using a portion of the wooden fence with some hinges, a lock, handles, and a wheel on the bottom to help support some weight and improve moment for opening and closing. This will allow us access to the coop and run as well as an easy way to occasionally let the chickens out to range in the rest of the yard.

This is what the post hole auger looked like

Once all of the materials were gathered the first step was to dig the holes for the posts. We rented a post hole auger and every eight feet around the coop we dug down two feet to create the holes. The area ended up being 24x24 which is plenty of room for the tiny girls. The posts were set in a mixture of cement and dirt. We wanted to make sure they were sturdy enough to hold the fencing and the gate once we put them up. We let the posts set overnight.
  The next day it was time to add the fencing. Across the back area of the coop towards the woods we used a large portion of the wooden fencing because the ground was more level and that is where the chickens tended to "break out" of the coop area. The rest of the way around we use the wire fencing. We did stack two layers of wire fencing behind the coop next to the wooden portion just to make sure they would not try and fly out. It does also provide a barrier for predators even though that was not our main concern at this time. Our woods is the home to many hungry creatures so any means to protect the chickens is always helpful.
   There are three chickens that I like to refer to as the three amigos; Betty, Luna and Dumpling. They are always the three that break out of the coop area to go roam around the rest of the yard. They never seems to want to follow the rules! Haha. No matter how many barriers we tried to create they always managed to find a way out. However, now that we have the official fencing up they have been staying all together which has helped lower our anxiety levels and puts our minds at ease. Knowing they are safer while they are outside is a great benefit to building the fencing!