Chicken boarders

[alet_chicken]

I'm in the final stages of planning a walk-in-run. In fact the slabbed base will hopefully go down on Monday and Tuesday, then it's final touches to the design before placing an order with Bay Animal Housing.

 

The cube will be outside the run, and we want to install an automatic pop hole opener to the run to keep our hens in bed until a civilised hour (because they can be quite noisy). I've measured the Cube (and the pop hole opener/sliding door), and this is what I've come up with:

(A bit to have a CAD picture I know, but I'm very excited about the WIR!) All measurements are in inches. The view is from the inside of the run, and only shows the panel in front of the Cube, and a small corner panel. The dark-coloured bit will be a pop-up hatch, so that I can use the space under the Cube as a sick bay/introduction pen if needed. The widest sliding door I could find is narrower than the Cube door, hence the doubled-up wooden bits in front of the Cube.

 

Now my question to people with WIR's is: do these measurements look ok? Anything obvious I've missed?

[Mercedes55]

I do love the fancy CAD drawing, although I'm not sure I understand it all as I'm not very good at that kind of thing.

 

How many hens are you having in it? I don't know where your main door is but one thing I would change about mine if I could is to have inward opening doors as I think it's easier to stop the hens getting out.

[alet_chicken]

Hi, yes, I am thinking about having an inward opening door. We may well opt for an outward-opening stable type door (with the division being at knee height), just because it would be obvious from the house whether the door is open and the chickens are free-ranging. We have two greyhounds, who really don't mix well with chickens.

 

The run will be 10 by 6 foot. Here is a drawing, since I couldn't help myself when working out the size of the hard base :

There is a tree in the "missing" corner of the L.

 

We have 11 chickens at the moment. They live in a Cube train, so the new run will be around the same size as what they have now (actually a bit more if we count the space under the Cube). We are planning to gradually downsize (by not replacing girls), they get plenty of free-ranging time, and I plan to put in some mezzanine levels, so I'm not too concerned that the run is rather under the 10-square-feet-per-chicken rule of thumb at the moment. (Besides it's the biggest WIR that my OH would let me have. Fortunately the design is modular so we can always extend if I get my way later...)