Building a new run

Hi all . I kept the coop free from the wall as its my neighbors wall . also Im a serial renter so you never know when you might need to move on and that way the whole thing can be dismantled and set up where ever i may end up .
 
Well its been while , and the coops still standing . the foxes have given up now , sometimes the come a sit there looking at the chooks , the chooks just look back at um . They have taken to trying to get them when their out in the garden. We never leave them unattended after the first time , the last time I was no more the 5 feet away when I heard the squawk, turned looked down and saw two chickens in the air and one in the mouth of a fox who had been under a bush at my feet, I punched the fox on the hind quarters he dropped the bird , ( aren't all those fluffy feathers good ) Birds fine :D
 
I was telling a Frenchman how bad the fox problem was in England. He was amazed they were so confident to snatch chickens from under your nose in broad daylight and even go into houses looking for a meal.
 
Hi Castara, good to hear from you, after quite a while, and to know the chooks are OK. A video of you punching the fox and rescuing your hen would have been a good addition to the thread. Could you perhaps arrange a replay, with camera crew at the ready?
 
Hope you caught it a good un Castara, do you offer a mobile Fox thumping service?. Not surprised at the French reaction Chris, given the traps, dogs and large groups of men shooting anything that moves their Foxes have probably all packed up and come over here.
 
Surprisingly Dinosaw, the French in this region are very disciplined when hunting and the whole thing is very regulated anyway, with quotas. To be allowed to shoot anything at all here you need to pass a rather complicated competency exam -something they don't have in the UK. The problem with foxes in England started with townies feeding them and really got bad after the hunting ban. I've only seen one fox here, but can hear many calling at night. The solution applied is not to exterminate them, but simply to put up effective defences or accept the losses. Foxes do hunt during the day here as well, but still have their natural fear of man.
 
Interesting what you say about the shooting Chris, last week someone wiped out the colony of around 10-12 pairs of crows nesting in a tree about 50-60m from us, I found the remains (very little left as we have 2 pairs of red kites patrolling) in the middle of our plot which meant they had blasted away at it over our land which was nice and illegal of them and last month my in-laws had someone in their suburban street using an air rifle on pigeons sat on peoples roofs!.
 
chrismahon said:
Surprisingly Dinosaw, the French in this region are very disciplined when hunting and the whole thing is very regulated anyway.
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Not, unfortunately around us Chris. We wear cowboys hats some weekends (reflective, of course) as it feels just how I would imagine Dodge City in the 1800's :-)07

I have asked the local chasse not to hunt on my land and that has been agreed.

Gary
 
Castara said:
Hi All ,
I'm a confused newbie, :-)07 trying to work out if its possible to get 3 bantams in my london garden
I'm trying to decide where to build a Run and coop .The best place I can find is a 6ftx6ft area in a south facing corner , with the back being a brick wall of an out building, Its under a big cherry tree and visable from the house But its a paved area! and I'm not sure If I should remove this and replace with earth or just put a good layer of dirt and mayby bark chips down on top of the paving slabs?? I could build a raised area (with railway sleepers)and infill with soil but drainage occurs to me as a problem???
Any thoughts would be great fully received
Thanks Conor :)
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Hi I have just had 2 runs built, well they are galvanised and had to be put together. I also used wood chip on the base on both of these runs. Every morning I poop scoop up before I let the boys and girls out and rake it over. This is a very good thing to use as a base as long as you make sure you get it from a specialised manufacturer because some packs contain chemicals which can be harmful to you chickens. Hope this helps and good luck with your run.
 
Hi, I'm new to chicken keeping. I have a coop on wheels in a 10' by 10' walk in run with a roof. The roof, back and one side is covered with a transparent tarpaulin, the other side is just 12 inches from a fence and the front is not covered. The run is on concrete slabs. At present I am putting chopped bamboo on the floor, which is what was used at the place where I bought my chickens, but am planning to use aubiose when I have used up the bamboo. When we had a lot of rain recently the run floor got very wet, but I'm not sure what else I can do to stop rain getting. Also I would like some advice about using the aubiose eg how thick should it be on the floor of the run. At the moment I scrape up droppings every afternoon along with some of the bamboo, and after the girls have gone to bed (six of them) I put down sanitizing powder. I replenish chopped bamboo as required and sweep out the whole lot when it seems necessary and clean the slabs with Jeyes fluid, then start again. Any advice would be very welcome.
 
Hello and welcome to the forum Terrysgirls.

I go for a depth of about three inches on soil but I've got a quite a few runs so I have to be miserly with the stuff, if you haven't already got kickboards on the run then it's worth putting some on to stop them scratching the aubiouse out of the run. You don't need to use sanitising powder every day, for the size of your run and the number of birds you have if you were to worm them with flubenvet every four months and say use the powder liberally once a month that would be fine especially as you are poo picking regularly. With regards to the rain there is a limit to how much you can keep out, especially if it is windy, what you can do is reduce the amount of water splashing into the run as it comes off the roof by fitting guttering with a downpipe.
 
Hi dinosaw. Many thanks for the info. I have just used flubenvet for the first time and I do use verm-x and apple cider vinegar, so hopefully all will be well. Thanks again :-).
 
Do you have a shed? I found great ideas on pinterest for using part of shed instead of having a coop outside and a run which reduced space. And the rat moved out. Have 3 bantams and shed with window - just cut pop hole in bottom of shed and made an indoor run when its horrible outside and the rat(s) didnt find it so easy and left. I have a 4x4 feet run but let them run outside in garden if you have space. If not, plant appropraite hardy plants for interest (tough grasses seem to work) to give them space from each other. And as has been said, cover part of run at least and wood, not bark, chips. Exciting to get your hens! Enjoy!
 
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