Ask RiotACT: Chicken coop run

The Bungendore Steel Company sell 4 wire mesh panels sized 2.0m wide x 1.8m high. There are 3 wall panels and a door panel. They bolt together with standard bolts which are provided and cost about $300 for the kit. We have 6 of their kits and have made a pet run and larger chicken run for our ~30 chickens. I mounted their panels on top of sleepers which cost me about $50 and jsut drilled and staked them into the ground. Further to that we concreted the base and put a colour bond roof onto them. All up our 6 pens and dog run cost about $1000 to make and it is snake, fox and eagle proof. We haren’t lost a chook since finishing them and we live in Canberra/NSW rural.

rasil said :

If you live anywhere in Canberra you have foxes and they will raid for chickens even in the middle of the day – a friend in the middle of suburbia had them coming along the fence line like a cat.
There is a guy I’ve seen at the Hall markets who also seems to be at the Saturday morning markets near the merry-go-round in the city who sells runs that look great. They are mobile and secure and definitely the next best thing to building something yourself.
A note, if you do decide to build it yourself, you need footings (the foxes will dig in) and where we lived backing reserve in Canberra we also had to have wire over the top to stop the eagles taking the chooks.
Good luck – home laid eggs are the best.

Hi Rasil. Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll check out the Hall Markets.

I built my own chicken run and I’m not really the handiest person around. It’s extremely easy. Google some plans. Would probably only take half a day on a weekend.

If you live anywhere in Canberra you have foxes and they will raid for chickens even in the middle of the day – a friend in the middle of suburbia had them coming along the fence line like a cat.
There is a guy I’ve seen at the Hall markets who also seems to be at the Saturday morning markets near the merry-go-round in the city who sells runs that look great. They are mobile and secure and definitely the next best thing to building something yourself.
A note, if you do decide to build it yourself, you need footings (the foxes will dig in) and where we lived backing reserve in Canberra we also had to have wire over the top to stop the eagles taking the chooks.
Good luck – home laid eggs are the best.