Garden Life poultry run

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chickenfan

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Has anyone tried the Gardenlife steel-framed poultry run? It has a weldmesh upgrade and a skirt around the bottom. They are on a special sale at the moment and I'm wondering how safe they are.
 
Can't get a picture when I call up the link Chickenfan, which is a fault with their site I think. Two problems i have come across with tubular framed runs. First is in cases where the mesh is attached with tie wraps a fox can tear them off. Second is heavy wet snow building up and causing them to collapse. Same happens with any run really, but wide spans are particularly vulnerable and need centre support.
 
I thought this one looked quite good, actually, especially if you could upgrade to the Weldmesh option. If this was to be my main winter run I would want a tarp roof over it, similar to the kit supplied but over the whole roof, this would be easy to obtain from
Tarpaulins Direct with fixing hooks. It does have quite a good slope on it so maybe it would drain OK. Certainly worth considering at the sale price, and I'm sure you could manage to bolt it together.
 
This is a good quality and easy to put up tubular frame. The roll of chicken mesh is your standard quality so a fox can chew through it, you would need the weld mesh option. Beware though, they are much bigger than you think once in situ, remember to check height as well as floor space for one and whether you can easily move the coop within it as once the door is on it, you won't be able to take the coop out without lifting it right off the ground.
I bought a 3m sq one on ebay for £210 from garden life, but sadly once in the garden the trees hung too low, so it had to go to a friend.. Not the prettiest, but functional.
 
Of course if you have a plastic coop which comes to bits you won't have the problem of getting it intact through the door, but that's a good point, B.B. The height is an advantage if it's to sit in an open space as it means you can walk around comfortably inside.
 
It's about 6"6 in the middle so loads of headroom.
Starting to feel like that green frog is haunting me :)
 
Thanks so much for your feedback Marigold and Baby Bantam. How did you find it to put up, Baby Bantam? Garden Life told me c '15 hours' because the weldmesh needs cutting to shape. It also has those nylon ties that Chris thought could be insecure.
 
Chap in Derby watched the foxes tear through the ties on his cctv playback Chickenfan. I told him if he ran a separate wire through the mesh and tied that to the frame it would have spread the load across the ties. The answer is to use more and better ties I suppose or use wire to secure the mesh along the bottom and up the sides. The fox worked on each tie in turn until enough had failed to push the mesh off the frame and get in.
 
The advantage of a wooden frame to a run is that you can easily staple the mesh to the uprights and horizontal supports, but as
Chris says you can also reinforce the fixings with wire. When we made our run (mesh on wood) I joined the horizontal pieces of mesh between the uprights by 'sewing' them together with garden wire, which is thin and soft to work with but very strong once woven in place, I should think you could go round and round the struts on the metal frame in the same way. As the mesh would be supported along its whole length there would be no risk of sagging between ties.
 
Thank you both for all your thoughts on this. I think it might be easier to start from scratch with a wood frame, or to use electric fencing.
 
I would go for the electric fencing, I have just bought some with a hot gate and it's flexible, movable, easy to use and I love it. Again, just think of overhanging trees and use a piece of string to work out what length you want before you buy. Bit worried about Chris's comments about the fox though, too foxy by far :D
 
Yes electric fencing is flexible and useful to give extra space, but if course it provides no shelter, whereas with a wood and mesh run you can easily put on a roof and some protection round the aids to keep the floor, the feed and the dustbath dry and resist the worst of the wind. You can also easily attach custom- made perches etc to the wooden uprights. Also there's always the possibility of a power failure win electric, heather you use battery or mains, and you have to keep on trimming grass and weeds to avoid short circuits round the base,
I think either method has advantages but they do quite different jobs.
 
The wooden framed run sounds to be the ideal, Marigold, because of the luxuries one can provide - but I am unfortunately not practical and would have to pay someone to build it, which might be quite costly. People round here do use the electric runs successfully. I guess one just has to be very careful. As I don't have carpentry skills, I think I may save up for an Omlet walk in run for my allotment which I can put together myself, move, and which has a good second hand value if I need to sell it on later.
 
Forgot to say the Omlet weldmesh run can also be padlocked, which might help a bit against theft.
 
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