Using the wire walls of chicken run as vine trellis?

[Weasleymum]

I was reading the threads about using raised beds all around a run as predator protection, and the thread about what to grow for chickens, when I had this idea: is there any reason NOT to grow vining veg up the wire walls of a run? Not all the walls, but maybe just one side?

My idea is to put a small raised bed just outside the western end of the run, and grow cucumbers in it, training the cucumber vines through the hardware cloth. (Overall dimensions of coop/run will be 5' x 10', with the coop at the east end; long sides face north and south, so the west side is a short side.) The vines should provide a little extra shade from the harsh summer-afternoon sun, and the chickens can have whatever cucumbers develop on their side of the mesh.

Will this damage the run at all? Will it block too much of the airflow through the run? Thoughts?

 

[greenfamilyfarms]

If you can keep them from eating them! I thought they would leave gourd vines alone since they are pretty inedible, but that wasn't the case. I had peck marks in my gourds and several rotted because of the damage.

 

[Weasleymum]

I'm figuring that with the bed itself, plus the first several inches of vine, and probably the majority of the plant itself on the *outside* of the run, they wouldn't be able to damage the plants too much, and they'd be welcome to whatever fruits grew inside the run... They'd only be able to peck at whatever portions of the vine made it through the wire mesh.

 

[kian]

I think it'd be a good idea to try, just don't plant *all* your cucumbers there. You'd be surprised what they can pull through wire!