The Angry Birds 3D had a nice tight coop, but now they needed a run that was equally predator proof. I decided to go with a PVC frame because that would be light enough for me to move by myself when it came time to clean it out.

You can see from this photo here (sort of) that the back of my yard has a fairly high berm. Because of this, I needed to make a footer for the front of the run, both to provide a solid, level surface for the run to sit on, and to prevent predators from digging underneath the PVC

Not a great picture, but shows the berm against the block wall

I didn’t spend a lot of time on it. Basically I laid a 10′ 2×6 board lengthwise across the front of the berm, ensuring it was level all the way across as well as level with the ground on the opposite side (against the cinderblock wall).  I used metal stakes to hold the wood in place, mixed up some concrete, and poured it behind the board between the board and the berm.

Mixing the cement

The footer after removing the board, which you can just barely see lying in the garden bed at the very bottom of the picture

I did this on the front as well as the side opposite the wall of the coop. Into the concrete I set several bolts, inserting them upside down so the head of the bolt was set in the concrete and the threaded part stuck up. This would let me secure the PVC frame to the concrete so it couldn’t be lifted up by any curious (read “hungry”) animals.

Bolt embedded in cement, with PVC in place. I also got matching wingnuts to secure it. Turned out to be unnecessary because the fit was *very* tight due to a slight measuring miscalculation.

The frame was 3/4″ Schedule 40 PVC pipe cut to length:

A regular wood saw worked just fine to cut the PVC

I had a little challenge finding these little guys at the local Home Depot, so I ordered them from Formufit.

Connectors for center squares of the frame

Those are for the middle connections; the ones for the end pieces are similar except there are only 3 holes in each rather than 4, and the bottom portion is a 90-degree angle rather than a straight pass through.

As you saw above, I drilled holes into the bottom front pieces of the PVC to slide over the bolts in the concrete, then slid the frame on top. Here’s the assembled run frame:

The assembled frame

Once it was in place, I covered it in chicken wire, wrapping the wire around the bottom pipe and securing every foot or so to all the pipes:

Wired frame. Pic's bad because it was getting pretty dark at this point.

The end cap (opposite the coop) is a separate piece that’s wire-tied into place. I wanted it like that so I could remove it if I needed to get inside the run without moving the frame for some reason (yeah, I’d have to crawl).

Wire-tied end "doorway" for emergency ingress.

Ian graciously jig-sawed out a door for the chickens to exit the coop into the run. He attached a hinge at the bottom so it could double as a ladder. Eventually I’ll attach a eye-ring with a chain running up through the top of the run so I can just pull it up to close the door during the colder nights.

Door / entry ramp. Hinge is centered on the bottom of the door.

Finally I topped the whole thing with trellising, partly to provide additional shade and partly because … well, I had a bunch of trellis.

Trellis pieces are just sitting on top the frame so they'll be easy to remove

Here’s the whole thing now. Again, I still have some accessorizing to do on the coop, and I’m debating what I can do with the PVC to make it look a little less ugly, but overall I’m pretty pleased. And the girls have been having a ball running in and out of the coop.

My micro-homestead is really making progress!