3rd time lucky... this forum hates vertical photos!

[Icemaiden]

3rd attempt at posting a photo... I hope hens are less complicated than this!! If this doesn't work, I'll give up & go to the pub 19
I couldn't make this photo tiny enough to post vertically, so I've had to turn it on its side. Apologies for any crooked necks 11

Thanks to Bickerton for advice in designing the door for my run:

 

[Marigold]

That looks excellent (though my iPad keeps kindly rotating it for me when I try to turn it round!)
All you need now is some nice hens.

 

[Bickerton]

Woop! Good job, what it set you back in the end if you don't mind me asking? Get a sense of achievement when you cobble together your own stuff don't you

 

[chrismahon]

Fortunately I could wriggle sideways to see this. Pretty small house with a lot of stuff in it! Sorry, but all I can see is fine grade chicken wire on a very well built framework. Great fun building your own stuff. Don't forget to add it to your house insurance -we did and were very lucky given our old neighbours.

 

[Icemaiden]

Bickerton - I'll have to do the maths & get back to you. Just don't tell my husband, if I work out what I've spent :roll:

Chris - thanks for the suggestion of mentioning it to my insurers. I hadn't thought of that. They'll probably want a 5 lever mortice deadlock on the door though & a burgalar alarm 07 as we got burgled last year; the small print on this year's renewal ran to several extra pages...

 

[chrismahon]

Our policy covered £1000 worth of unsecured stuff in the garden, like ornaments and plants. We weren't covered for the £12,000 replacement value of coops, runs and equipment that ultimately sat in the carport awaiting loading and despatch. Lucky I guess. But the insurance would have covered one small coop and run. Point is its not the chickens that are valuable cash wise (or resale wise) but the coops and runs. I'm amazed they don't get stolen very often. I was even more amazed ours weren't torched by the neighbours just before we left!

 

[Icemaiden]

The posts for the run have all been postcreted into place, so stealing the run in one piece would need an excavator, but I guess there are thieves about who might cut through & steal the chicken wire or cut a gap in the chicken wire to steal the coop... If we didn't have such a friendly postman, I could consider getting guard geese That'd give me an excuse for putting barbed wire around the edge of our plot, just below knee height...

 

[Icemaiden]

Bickerton asked back in November (I think) what it'd cost me in the end to make the door to my run rather than buying the Wells Poultry one.
If I include the cost of the 2" x 2" tanalised wood (as I'd allowed for it in my calculations), it's about £45 - a guesstimate as I can't remember exactly what I paid for the hinges & Suffolk latch. The wire mesh was left over from building the run, but works out at £3, coming off a 50m roll from Hills of Devon.

The eggs currently work out at £16 each! (Glad I didn't work it out when we'd only had a couple 07 )
But you can't put a price on watching a battery / enriched cage hen change from a frightened, bewildered bird to a happy little hen who'll eat mealworms out of your hand 08