Chicken tunnel

[Big Doggie]

These are my plans for the next generation of tunnels. One section is large and built to accept the smaller section.
I attach the tunnel to the coop with the extra length of chicken wire that extends off the end of the tunnel.
But to maintain security the run needs to be fully wrapped in wire, hardware cloth or chicken wire including the bottom.
My issue concerns rats who got into the spaces between the tunnel sections and then had easy access to the coop feeders.

 

[Granny23]

Howdy, just jumping on here to see if anyone has made a chicken tunnel and if you have pictures of your designs that I can get ideas from I’d appreciate it! I’ve allowed my hens to free range the past two years we have five acres so I always wanted them to have access to most of the grass, bugs/frogs all that good stuff. Well at the very beginning of December last year I had my first hawk attack he brutally killed our rooster who was trying to protect the hens, it was devastating but he died a noble death. Our neighbors also have tons of hawk attacks on their flock too. Anyways since then I haven’t let them free range at all they have a large run connected to a coop and a little area of outside space that’s completely covered in heavy netting. I still want the hens to have some access to our land without getting picked off by hawks. Hawks are our biggest predator problem in rural west Michigan. We don’t get a ton of raccoons or other predators because of the farmer fields surrounding us but hawks are everywhere. We are thinking of building something that we can move around so it’s not set in one place my husband is insistent on using chicken wire because it’s more cost affective but ground predators can tear through it easily from what I’ve heard but our biggest issue is hawks not raccoons or other animals but if you’ve used chicken wire with success I’d like to see it! Plus the hens got into my garden beds last year and nearly destroyed all my hard work so that’s another reason I want them in a tunnel!

I have a "chunnel" as my neighbor calls it. My girls destroyed my lawn in my back yard and the dirt the dogs brought inside was horrible!!! So I attached 6 pieces of chicken tunnel to their huge enclosure that is attached to their 8' x 4' coop. It goes along by my strawberry garden and ends at an area by another fence and a bunch of lantana bushes. It's dirt area about 10 feet across and they all hang out there particularly when it's hot. Lots of dirt bath places and the entire thing is predator proof. At night the solar door closes where the tunnel attaches to the enclosure. Then they go into the coop to sleep.
I would post pictures but for the past few months I haven't been able to, not sure why because I've posted here before, so....

I think I got the 6 metal tunnel pieces I needed either at Walmart or Amazon.

 

[Big Doggie]

Howdy, just jumping on here to see if anyone has made a chicken tunnel and if you have pictures of your designs that I can get ideas from I’d appreciate it! I’ve allowed my hens to free range the past two years we have five acres so I always wanted them to have access to most of the grass, bugs/frogs all that good stuff. Well at the very beginning of December last year I had my first hawk attack he brutally killed our rooster who was trying to protect the hens, it was devastating but he died a noble death. Our neighbors also have tons of hawk attacks on their flock too. Anyways since then I haven’t let them free range at all they have a large run connected to a coop and a little area of outside space that’s completely covered in heavy netting. I still want the hens to have some access to our land without getting picked off by hawks. Hawks are our biggest predator problem in rural west Michigan. We don’t get a ton of raccoons or other predators because of the farmer fields surrounding us but hawks are everywhere. We are thinking of building something that we can move around so it’s not set in one place my husband is insistent on using chicken wire because it’s more cost affective but ground predators can tear through it easily from what I’ve heard but our biggest issue is hawks not raccoons or other animals but if you’ve used chicken wire with success I’d like to see it! Plus the hens got into my garden beds last year and nearly destroyed all my hard work so that’s another reason I want them in a tunnel!

Here’s a picture of my newest tunnels.