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

[The good lifers]

I think chickens kept on decking is a no no because of the slipping about factor, but what about if they were on there with about 6 inches of easibed and a dust bath?Would like to move them about a bit and have inherited a large deck area... anyone else done this?Otherwise I will have to rip up the deck, hard work though!!

[Redwing]

There is no reason why that wouldnt work, someone on here has an Eglu attached to a pallet base and that works

 

I have a raised small run with a wooden floor and thats fine too

 

The only thing I don't like is that the wood can get a bit damp so I uncover it now and again to let the air get to it

 

 

If your deck has wide gaps you will need to put some mesh down to make sure the bedding (and chicken toes) don't fall through

[The good lifers]

wow thanks- I might give it a try. I have a big walk in run so it would be good to 'rest' the area it currently sits on before the girls are there for the winter...they seem to walk about on the deck at the moment ok, I can jet wash it after use!

[chelsea]

During our merging of 2 flocks we had one lot of hens up on our deck in our eglu. OH put a piece of tarpaulin over the decking (to stop the aubiose falling through the gaps) and then put in a large layer of aubiose - we also had some perspex sheets over the eglu run during the wet winter time so it stayed lovely and dry.

[The good lifers]

Fantastic ideas- thanks so much! I think I will go for it in a couple of weeks, but will need some help moving the run as it's a bigger one than an omlette run!Will wait for my OH to become free! Thankyou.

[Guest]

My problem with chickens and decking is rats. Rats LOVE decking - they can make wonderful nests undernath it. See rather sensasionalised report here

 

So you would be providing them somewhere cosy to build their nest and a handy food supply.

 

As for ripping it up being hard work - it would give you a LOT of handy wood to use for other projects. Heres how we used ours....

 

From horrible slippery decking

 

A table and ramp for the Eglu

 

A walk in run - which you can stand on!

 

There is also another run extention built out of it, we have a load of perches made from the railings and we have ralings in our dog cage which we use a a broody cage and they are roosting bars in there.