Keeping the grass down around the skirt of the runs?

[Martyn T]

We have exclusively used Omlet products for 4 years to house our rescues chickens. Sadly we now have to give up our rescue work and sell all the housing and runs. As we have dis-assembled everything I couldn’t help but notice how much rust has accumulated on the metal based items. Omlet really need to explore galvanising all metal parts before they get coated/sprayed. Anybody else got the same observation

[Beantree]

Unfortunately paint won't adhere to galvanised metal, so it has to be one or the other. Galvanising comes in varying degrees nowadays and the cheap shiny electroplating doesn't last very long at all; paint is far better. What does last is 'hot dip galvanising' where the components are dipped into a bath of molten zinc, but it is expensive to apply. We have some chicken wire here that came with the house prior to the previous owners, so must be thirty years old and shows no sign of corrosion at all. We have chicken wire treated the same and that has lasted, but we also have weld mesh electroplated and that rusted whilst stored in a dry garage!