Chicken Run!

I made a thing I am proud of!

We decided we should get a few more chickens (an Auracana named James who is a she and a Silver-laced Wyandotte named Bonnie, with 3 more to come from the same home), but we needed a bigger spot for them. We contemplated under the deck out back, but we would have to somehow cut holes into the house's siding to brace a structure and we didn't want to do that. But bracing it against our front fence? Much better idea.

Usually projects with long pieces of lumber are not my list because we don't have a big car, but now that the xB has no carseats because the Mazda is our family car, I just went for it. Helps that the lumber yard is about a mile away. And the xB is magical, I fit like 16 pieces of 8 and 10 foot 2x4s in with no issue, I just used a bungee cord to tie-down the back door. I wish they still made the original xB because man, what a versatile and fuel efficient car.

So anywho, we sketched out a basic plan and I wrote up what I needed and then got to work:



The basic box.



I cut down an old extra fence piece to make our gate, and we had a bunch of deer fencing lying around which was just enough to finish the project.



Finished, with the deer fencing stapled on and the gate latch attached.



So now the chickens are a little safer, since predators usually can't enter our front fenced yard. We can also sell the Eglu as soon as we put the chickens together - we are separating them right now because the larger two were picking on the new babies.

Now we just need to convert an old dog house into a coop as soon as we can find one.