I'm just preparing to put up the anti-snow, wind and rain clear tarps round some of the run sides. They're not particularly needed ATM, but if I wait until they are, it'll be because it's the sort of awful weather they're designed to protect the girls from, i.e, impossible to fix tarps in. This flock has always followed the lead of the dominant Leghorn, who insisted that everyone slept alongside her on the long perch under the 6ft high run roof, not in the coop. It stays dry under there, mostly, but when the winter gales began they were being blown around by the south-westerlies and it was very cold. So last year I just removed the long perch and made them sleep, grudgingly, in the coop they now only use to lay in. When Spring came I put the perch back up, and they were all straight up on it that night. So this year I'm fixing a clear tarp along that side, whilst it's calm and dry - not a job for a windy wet day - so they get plenty of air compared within a coop, even one with the pophole always open, but sheltered from insulation-removing wind or rain. Snow is rare here, but when it happened last, the whole run was full of barrowloads of it, blown in through the uncovered mesh. That was in March last year, luckily when I was waiting for a new batch of birds to arrive, so the run was empty - would have been seriously inconvenient if hens had been living in there as it was above my knees on the approach path and I couldn't get the run door open.
