This creative and cost effective chicken run not only keeps your chickens secure but doesn’t hurt your pocketbook.

Sometimes we feel we need the fanciest or super cute and fun chicken coop but think about how much mess chickens make, I mean if only they could clean up after themselves, well that would be ideal but in a chickens owners reality, that just isn’t possible.

We’ve built many chicken runs and where we live we have various chicken hurting predators such as hawks and owls, we decided to put bird netting on top for a little added security and so they can’t just come in and swoop them out.

We’ve also come to the conclusion that hens will lay their eggs anywhere. We had a leghorn hen who would fly over the fence, lay her egg on a bale of hay and fly back over. One time before we skirted our house, we found the hens were going underneath and laying their eggs, so be prepared to search other areas if you notice you’ve been getting less eggs than normal, except during molting season.

Why mention the above paragraph? Well, to show you that we made a chicken home with no nesting boxes and the hens still lay their eggs in it. If duty calls, then will lay that egg where they feel safe and secure.

Ok, so let’s take a peek at the run I made and small chicken house I remade into something sturdy, with ventilation and security. The chicken house was made from a small brooder chicken house that was used as their run, I covered it with boards all around, put plastic on top and on the side door (for winterizing purposes) and added a latch to keep the door open during the day. There is ventilation next to the door as there is a gap purposely left for air flow and then on top there is ventilation.

It was an easy make and very cost effective project. Chicken house was given to me, pallets were free, fencing was purchased off my local marketplace ($15), screws we had laying around ($5), 2×4’s ($6), free wood planks and then the bird netting ($30), door hardware was purchased at Harbor Freight ($3). Total cost: $59

Have you built something from pallets? Let us know in the comments or join our community and post it in the forums, we would love to see it!

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