oxstu Posted August 28, 2007 Share Posted August 28, 2007 Morning all We've had our chickens for 5 months now, and have no lawn left, so are thinking of making a permanent run for the girls. Can anyone suggest the best way to go about this? All help gratefully received. stu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chelsea Posted August 28, 2007 Share Posted August 28, 2007 well firstly choose a spot in your garden which you think is appropriate. (we did our permanent spot under a blossom tree for some shelter/shade). Some people on here have their run on slabs and then put hemcore/aubiose on top of the slabs in the run. We put log roll around the perimeter of the run, placed the eglu and run inside the log roll and then filled the inside of the run with hemcore/aubiose. Outside of the run we initially put bark chips (for us to walk on) but we have replaced this with stone chippings which is cleaner and easy in the wet weather. We have also dotted some potted plants around the outside of the run to make a feature and the eglu looks very pretty. Check out the gallery on here for some inspiration, there's different ways - but i cannot praise hemcore/aubiose highly enough in the run - the poo's and smells just disappear in it. A permanent area for our chickens was the best thing we did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poplars Posted August 28, 2007 Share Posted August 28, 2007 We had no lawn left either after about 5 months and we replaced our lawn then put the eglu in a barked area that was (is) a playarea that is not used so much nowadays, they are very happy scratching around in the bark and mud, but love it when they are let completely out at weekends! They have an area made of the omlet chickens fencing to keep themm off the garden when there is no one to supervise them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arowland17 Posted August 28, 2007 Share Posted August 28, 2007 We have made a permanent run and only lasted about 10 days moving the eglu around as our 2 were very quickly destroying the lawn!! We bought some willow edging from homebase (similar idea to log roll but it has these decorative loops of willow above the little fence bit which our chickens love walking through!!) and have the eglu itself on a concrete base that an old shed had been on originally - the run itself is on what is left of the grass and we fill it with hemcore which is amazing. we used to have to poo pick daily due to flies but it all disappears into the hemcore and makes it so low-maintenance. the hemcore can be raked once a week or so if needed but our 2 rake it up all day while they're scratching around in it. I would recommend an edging of some sort around the run / area of permanent run as ours love to kick as much hemcore out as possible!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jen Posted August 28, 2007 Share Posted August 28, 2007 We got fed up of the mess too, so built this run. They have loads of room and it wasn't too tricky: http://club.omlet.co.uk/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=16122 We initially put the run on bark and hemcore, then fenced them in, but they continually escaped! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cinnamon Posted August 28, 2007 Share Posted August 28, 2007 Theres a link below to see step by step progress on our own build run Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lindy Posted August 28, 2007 Share Posted August 28, 2007 Hi Stu, I do agree with people's endorsement of Hemcore and Aubiose - they make life so much easier. Re siting a run, permanent or otherwise: take care that it's not on ground that's soft enough for a determined fox to tunnel under. We have ours on a slabbed area, one of the reasons being to prevent foxes getting in by digging. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oxstu Posted August 29, 2007 Author Share Posted August 29, 2007 Many thanks everyone, Hemcore and bark chippings ith decorative logs it is then. Stu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
