4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[chooklady]

There are lots of ideas racing around in my head at the moment.

 

I am leaning towards buying a cube. Now do I buy it with a run or do I get hubby to make a wooden enclosuse around the cube. I thought maybe a walk-in one would be practical so the cube can be cleaned more easily and it would give me more room to put branches, perches etc.

 

What is everyone's opinion on that? Presumably it would need some sort of skirt around the bottom to keep the predators out.

 

My other question at the moment is how high does a fence need to be 1. to keep the chickens in the garden and 2. to keep foxes out. The fence at the bottom of my garden is about 3.5 feet high and mesh, should I replace this or just add to the height, I don't really want to block out the veiw if I can help it.

 

Many thanks for your advice I am looking forward to your replies.

Regards

Nicola

[Tessa the Duchess]

Hi and welcome to the forum. In hindsight I would only buy either the Cube or the Eglu without the runs. The plastic housing is brilliant, so easy to clean and it looks really nice too I think the Eglu run is too small and very difficult, if not impossible, to get in and clean it out. I gather from others that the cube run is equally difficult to get into as the door is very small. So build a walk in run, ideally attaching the cube to the outside which makes it easy to hose down and clean. If you put the walk in run on paving slabs you wouldn't need a 'skirt' otherwise you definitely would to make it fox proof.

3.5ft is much too low a flighty chicken could easily clear it Ideally fences should be 7ft. It is really difficult to keep a determined fox out, they can scale really high fences. If you live in an area where foxes live you will have to be very vigilant if you let your chickens free range.

Hope you decide to get chickens soon

 

Tessa

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Welcome to the forum, Nicola . You may have already checked this out, but if not * this thread * might give you some inspiration .

 

Regarding your fence, I have a 3.5 ft wall at the end of the garden so added old bits of trellis to it. They've never shown the slightest interest in getting over it (although I have put garden canes and fruit netting round the outer perimeter which is about 4 ft behind the wall, just in case ).

 

[mayflower]

Originally, I bought the cube and extended run for my hens. When I first collected my ex bats, which I kept in a 'convalescent run' with the cube on the floor until they were stronger, I started having second thoughts about the omlet run. The cube is fantastic.....easy to clean, to access, and nice and spacious. So we built a walk in run with the cube inside and it is great. Hubby put down concrete as a floor surrounded by breeze blocks then built the run on top of these. The aubiose(bedding) never spills out onto the garden. Furthermore, the run is totally rat and mouse proof. The walk in run six foot high means we can have branches quite high and I also leave the grey back off during the day after egg laying. So as well as floor space they have height for perching space as well.

[chooklady]

Welcome to the forum, Nicola . You may have already checked this out, but if not * this thread * might give you some inspiration .

 

Regarding your fence, I have a 3.5 ft wall at the end of the garden so added old bits of trellis to it. They've never shown the slightest interest in getting over it (although I have put garden canes and fruit netting round the outer perimeter which is about 4 ft behind the wall, just in case ).

 

 

Yse I am inspired by these runs, they are the sort of thing I have had in mind. Looks like hubby is going to be busy!!