We have 24 chickens; 22 hens and a couple of roosters. We used to have more, but unfortunately the Red-tail Hawks that reside on our property have learned our Free-Range Chickens are an easy meal; we have lost 4 hens over the last 3 months. We debated many different options, from bird netting, electric fence to restrict where the chickens could free range, a variety of different scare-tactics and deterrents for the hawks. None of them would guarantee safety for our birds and we just weren’t willing to take the risk of losing any more of our birds. So, we decided upon a fully-enclosed chicken run.

Here are some pictures during the intial construction.

Laid out the location of the run, just off of the existing covered run.
Dug the holes for the pressure treated posts.
Joshua doing some concrete mixing; one 80 lb bag in each posthole.
Nicholas anxiously waiting his turn to mix some concrete.
All 8 posts in the ground.

We decided on a run that would be 13’x48′, which should give our chickens plenty of room to roam. It won’t be the same as when they would free-range the entire pasture, and lay eggs in the barn, but it should be plenty of room. From everything I have read, chickens need roughly 10 sq/ft of run, per bird, to be happy. This new addition is more than twice the suggested area for our 24 birds.

We chose to do welded wire, with 2″x4″ openings for the roof. All this needs to do is prevent the hawks from swooping into the run to grab a bird. No more drive-thru dining around here, our chickens are off the menu. For the walls, we used field fence with 4″x4″ openings . This just has to keep the birds contained in the enclosure during the day. We had leftovers of almost all of this fencing from previous projects, so the build cost was relatively low.

And finally, we used cattle panels as an exterior barrier to prevent the goats from rubbing against the field fence. Our goats LOVE to scratch themselves on fencing, so these heavy-duty panels will protect the fencing from constant goat abuse.

Completed Chicken Fortress= peace of mind that the chickens are completely safe.
Original coop (far left), Original covered run (left of center), New fenced run (right).
Chickens getting acquainted with their new digs.

We are so happy to have this completed. It was a very difficult decision to make, as we do enjoy them being able to freely roam the property. It was always fun collecting eggs in the barn, as they would lay eggs in all the goat feeders. But, it needed to be done in order to keep them safe, and they can now rest easy and safe in their new Chicken Fortress.

From the farm,

Michael and Karen, and the boys.