Make a Chicken House Pen
A chicken pen, sometimes called a hen run 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 your prized blooms!
Pens are designed to give poultry plenty of room to move about because overcrowded birds get stressed, become sick more easily, can start to peck other birds and can stop laying. Chickens need space, the more the better, although this will inevitably depend on the area of backyard available for them. The chicken pen should have plenty of green vegetation growing in it for the chickens to forage, otherwise you will need to feed them on a daily basis. Remember that hens also need access to water, because they sweat easily especially in warm weather. If their beaks are open and their wings splayed, they need a drink.
Hens are placid animals that are easy prey for many types of predator, including raccoons, weasels, foxes, hawks, rats and neighborhood dogs and cats. It is your responsibility to provide proper protection for your hens, so your chicken run must be designed to give them a safe environment in which to live and lay.
There is nothing complicated about a hen pen, 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 burrow under it and get into the hen house. Then you will miss out on those nice fresh eggs for breakfast! This is where you should think about getting some tips and advice from experts knowledgeable in how to build a chicken house run and keeping and rearing chickens.
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 big enough hole to get in. Friends of ours positioned their coop and pen so that they could be seen from the kitchen table, a lesson learnt from bitter experience.
You might want to think about installing some sort of drainage for the chicken pen too. Over time hens can make quite a mess, made worse by wet weather. If possible, try to site the run on slightly sloping ground, which will help to overcome the problem. Some chicken keepers put tarpaulins or even permanent roofing over their runs but this can be an expensive option and is not really needed if the pen is big enough.
Another alternative is to build a chicken tractor or portable chicken coop, sometimes also known as an ark. A chicken tractor is a simple structure which combines a coop or nesting box with an attached run. The tractor can be moved around to give the hens fresh weeds and bugs, and to save your yard from being scratched bare. It also gives your garden free fertilizer! However, because the tractor has to be mobile it tends to be quite small, perhaps no more than eight feet long and four feet wide, so is suitable for only a few chickens at a time. A chicken tractor is very cheap and easy to make, however, so you could consider having several spaced around your backyard if you have many hens.
It makes sense to get expert advice before making a hen pen, unless you are experienced in space, feeding, shelter and health requirements for keeping poultry. Putting up a chicken pen 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 reward you with a regular supply of lovely free-range eggs.
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