How to Build a Predator Proof Chicken Run around your Coop // DIY Project

la la [Laughter] I got you you okay I see your nose Henry you're super cute you're so cute what's going on guys my name is Bart comar and this is RuPaul and if you're anything like our family you decided to get chickens you built a coop [Music] okay and now you want to give your chickens a place where they can roam be free be happy by building a predator-proof chicken run so today I'm going to show you how to build one of these keeping in mind the three threats that I think are vital to keep these guys safe and that's the aerial threat the direct threat and the underground threat right yeah RuPaul you ready let's do it okay so this is going to be a freestanding Chicken Run it's not anchored to anything in the ground and will only be screwed together at the corners I do however have a four foot fence on two sides of the coop that I'm gonna use to help level everything out but it can totally be just a freestanding Chicken Run if you don't have anything to attach it to the size of this run is 20 by 20 feet and each wall section that I'm laying out will be 10 foot by 7 foot high and for the bottom plate of each wall I need to use ground contact Lumber but my local hardware store didn't have any in stock but they did have a 2 by 8 by 10. so I ripped them down the middle and I can use them instead of a 2x4 as my bottom plate now because I didn't want this to have two by fours every 16 feet and look like a framing wall I decided to place studs in the middle of each 10 foot section wall but that means that I have to put a stretcher down the middle of it using a dado joint and this is going to give me more rigidity and keep the studs from twisting over time and if you're interested in building a chicken coop like mine I do have plans for coup de Villa available in the description below or you can head over to comarproject.com and visit the Kolmar store you can download them from there after getting my first wall laid out I screwed it together using three inch exterior grade screws then I can insert the 10 foot long stretchers in the middle and use two and a half inch screws to secure those so they don't punch all the way through with my first wall assembled I grabbed my wire mesh and made sure that it was aligned with the bottom plate and started stapling it with galvanized Staples every three to four inches now this is a 14 gauge 2x4 welded wire mesh and you can pick this up in any hardware store in their garden section if you want after stapling it to the bottom of the wall I can cut it off with a grinding wheel and move it to the top and do the same exact thing so that completes our first wall and then we can move on to our second one which includes a door all right so I just asked honey how big of a door do we want she goes it's a little excessive don't you think she goes why don't you go measure the wheelbarrow our wheelbarrow is 28 inches so 30 inch short [Music] after cutting out the dado for the header as well I can hammer it in and secure it into place we went with a 30 inch by 72 inch door opening because we're a fairly short family but you can definitely modify the size of this opening as needed and you definitely want to keep in mind that you're going to be cleaning this Coop out right so you want to make sure that you can get a barrel or a trash can into that opening without any problems [Music] [Music] so this is Henry he's pretty cool a little stressed out right now because they don't come out of the coop and uh you ready for your gated community Henry yeah all right give me like 10 minutes bro [Music] [Music] so I have my first two walls set up and they're gonna be the first 90 degree Corner because if I were to put two walls together like so it would do you know funky wonky things and we don't want that so once we have our 90 degree Corner established screwed together we can then work all the long walls off and it should be a fairly simple process I always say that and you know never turns out that way alright so my first order of business is going to be install a 4x4 right here to make up for the four by four that's over there and pound it into place [Music] is that there are perfect right there [Music] much better this come out like so it needs a little more [Music] yeah and this one's sitting obviously much higher than this wall because this wall is dug down in the ground but I'm not going to be digging my entire yard to lower this into it all I needed this was to be level and now I'll be able to attach to this one hopefully I don't have to do much adjustments on this run looks like I need to go down but not much now all the walls except for the back ones which are attached to the fence are freestanding if you want you can drive Stakes into the ground through the base plate like a railroad tie to keep them from shifting but we're going to be moving the scoop in the next year or so and I wanted to make sure that I could take the walls apart and move them as well so I didn't put any stakes in the bottom and it hasn't shifted since it was installed don't tell me you're going to want a dog house next huh yeah scram we're cooking now with all four walls up I can turn my attention to making the door which is one inch smaller than the actual door open I ripped the studs to two and a half inches wide for the door and cut the one inch strip to use later as a doorstop I put it together the same way as the walls except I added a cross brace in the middle of the door that is going to keep it from sagging over time [Music] all right all right so about a week ago I put up this netting and I wouldn't even call it netting it's basically string that's put together and you can't even see that it's up here and My worry is that a hawk's gonna come in and swoop down and get caught in a Nutty so I got some really thick backstop netting that we're gonna put up and hopefully that's going to protect the babies from above the only nylon backstop netting that I was able to find large enough was this rainbow colored one and I thought that that was way too distracting to look at so I decided that I'm gonna paint it with the same exact paint that I used on the walls I initially tried to use a nylon die but that only muted the colors a little bit but this acrylic paint did a great job however it did stiffen up a little bit after it dried and made the installation a little bit harder where I cut it to go around the tree so with pulling it and trying to zip tie it together is getting a little tricky so I just got a dowel and it's got a rounded Edge and this will act as a finger so I can put it between both the nuts that'll hold it I can zip tie it together and obviously you guys see that I have a treat and how we're gonna go about that well I cut out a couple of pieces of wood from some old planking and it's like a clamp for around the tree [Music] [Music] oh I know all right all right so we got our netting on and you would think that the aerial threat is gone right we've taken care of there's no Hawks swooping in trying to get cute little things like mac and cheese over here however that's not the case a couple of months ago we had a check-in by the name of Lady Gaga who was sitting right up against the fence and unfortunately a hawk swooped in went through the little squares in the fencing grabbed her and did a ton of damage to her to the point where the vet said we had to put her down there was there was nothing that we can do we know it was a hawk because there was a feather left behind and we have Hawks all over the place so to protect these little guys from such a threat that you really don't think can happen we're gonna put an additional fencing on here down below that is two feet high that is gonna prevent a hawk from kind of getting his claws up in there and getting a hold of my baby let's do that wherever I had easy access to my walls from the outside I can just staple it onto the wall and use the baling wire that it comes with to secure every couple of squares just to make sure it's secure and won't flap around in the wind and these squares are half inch by half inch so they're really really small and will keep any Predators away from the chickens when they're up close to the fence all right on the back side of the coop I have my wire here that backs up to my neighbor's fats and I don't have access to be nailing the mesh on the back side of my neighbor's fence so what we're going to do in here is basically just build out I'm going to run a 2x4 across here and then we can staple our fencing on our side which is actually going to create some space in there so nothing can get from behind there because this spot right here is where the attack happens so Lady Gaga was sitting right here and a hawk came from behind there somehow grabbed her and the damage so we're going to do is protect this area so that it never happens again Rue go back inside come on get back inside go back inside good girl you too Tony stay in the coop all right so now that we have our aerial and our direct threat taken care of we got to do something about the underground because animals can dig underground to get these little guys right so we're going to go into the shop and make a deterrent for that but first let's take a minute to thank the sponsor of this build Timberland Pro if you're anything like me you're on your feet for 10 12 hours a day foreign and having the right Footwear is key so when Timberland PRO asked if I would try their new Setra sneakers I was all in my mom always told me that you need two things in life a good mattress and a good pair of shoes now I can go straight from the shop pick up my kids from school do some grocery shopping and not look like I just came off a job site now I'm a big fan of Form and Function and these Citrus they give me both not only do they look sweet they also have a composite toe to protect my toesies they have a variety of colors to choose from from white to black so whatever your style is they got you covered still got it so make sure you guys head over to timberlandpro.com and grab yourself a pair of cetras whichever color you want I'm gonna have the ones that I like Linked In the description below and while you're there you can pick out one of these lined vests these are absolutely awesome I love them I wear them every day so thank you so much Timberland for supporting what I do let's get back to this build for the underground threat I'm going to be making some anti-dig spikes out of half inch rebar that I can pound into the ground around the coop that will prevent any Critters from digging underneath [Music] now you can buy something that is very similar to this online that is made out of galvanized steel but it's fairly expensive for 80 linear feet of fencing that I have to protect it would cost me around 500 bucks to do the entire area but making my own out of this rebar I was able to do it for 200 bucks [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] all right so that pretty much takes care of these little guys from the outside so we got the aerial threat covered the direct threat and underneath there's a few other things that you can still do to make sure that nothing gets these cute little guys you can also put in some Predator turns there's a ton of them out there on Amazon that you can put up there's spikes that you can put on top of your chicken run or your chicken coop I actually found a couple of LED lights that look like a predator so they look like a little fox or a tiny little wolf and the lights flash at night kind of given the impression there's a predator around so I put one on each side of the chicken coop and to be honest with you I don't know if it helps but we haven't had any issues at night so I guess that means that they're working but to make sure honey Bunny's making me put cameras inside the coop and on the outside because I think the biggest thing is knowing what your predators are we live in the midwest where we don't have wolves we don't have Bears because a chicken run like this is not gonna stop a bear not only we're keeping these little guys away from coyotes possums uh raccoons raccoons yeah we have a lot of raccoons but putting up cameras actually will give you an idea of what is coming around your Coop alright guys so that's it that's our Predator protection that we have around Coop De Villa if you guys have any questions about it let me know in the comments section below uh this is our first flock so we are also learning along the way and I would love to know if you guys have any other ideas that we can you know keep these guys safe because these are part of the family and we absolutely love them so if you're new to the channel make sure you hit that subscribe and the bell notification so you don't miss upcoming videos we have a really really cool project coming up demolishing the whole house I don't want you guys to miss that so hit that Bell notification thank you for joining me on this experience we will see you guys next time I'll slick your hair back a little ready you look like you got boogers right Tony Tony Tony Montana you take it easy way

Channel: Komar Project

Views: 719,842

Keywords: DIY, Chicken, Coop, Run, Chicken Run, How to build a chicken run, how to predator proof a chicken coop, how to predator proof chicken run, how to predator proof your chicken coop, how to predator proof your coop, how to build a chicken run, how to, predator proofing, predator proof chicken coop, predator proof, backyard chickens, chicken run, chicken coop, chicken coop ideas, chicken coop build, how to build a chicken coop, predator proof chicken run, chicken coop plans

Id: wJHy43tKwY4

Length: 16min 40sec (1000 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 01 2023