Description
This modular chicken run plan series lets you easily create, customize, and extend a secure outdoor habitat for your backyard chickens, cats, rabbits, or other small pets. Build a single module, or combine them for more space and limitless possibilities.
Key features of The Garden Run chicken run plan series:
- Includes 3 unique designs that work separately or together (see below)
- Fully predator proof with lockable latches and tough hardware cloth all around
- Carefully designed to simplify building, optimize materials, and reduce cost and waste
- Optional corrugated roof fits the two smaller designs — plus The Garden Ark!
- Works with any coop or hutch — for chickens, rabbits, cats, ducks, and more
- Built with pride. . . by you!
About The Garden Run chicken run plans:
- Instant download
- Available as individual designs or as a complete series
- Complete series plans include 80 pages of illustrations, photos, and step-by-step instructions
- Written for beginners, with simple cuts and techniques
- Includes full tool and material lists
- Includes both U.S. (feet/inches) and metric units (millimeters)
- Compatible with iPad and other PDF-friendly mobile devices
- Bundle with a set of coop plans and save!
- Satisfaction guaranteed
- Click here for a free plan preview
Add a little space to your chicken coop. Or a lot.
The three designs in the series link to each another — and to our coop designs — seamlessly. In fact, they’re just as easy to connect to any chicken coop, hutch, existing run, or housing with the instructions provided in the plans.
Purchase the plans for each separately, or bundled for a cost savings:
QUARTER-HEIGHT
The quarter-height design stands about two feet (0.6 meters) tall, including the base. It hinges open at the top and lets you enclose the most yard with the least amount of materials (see dimensions below). And it makes a great brooder or grow-out pen for chicks, a secure enclosure for your vegetable garden, and much more.
It’s also a good height for connecting other modules to each other and connects directly to just about any coop or structure. For many setups, this is the place to start. (By the way, all the connections are explained in the plans.)
Purchase quarter-height module plans individually here.
HALF-HEIGHT WITH GARDEN TOP
The half-height design stands about four feet (1.2 meters) tall. It has a wide front door that opens outward and a specially designed permeable rooftop garden bed, ideal for growing succulents or small herbs.
Now, the garden top isn’t a roof. Any rainwater that is not held by the soil or sipped up by the plants eventually drains into the run below, just as it would if the top were open-air.
This module will connect directly to The Garden Coop or The Garden Loft as is. To connect directly to our smaller coops, either leave off the garden top or raise the coops up a bit so that their roof overhangs clear the height of the garden top. You can always connect this module to your housing via a quarter-height module as well.
Purchase half-height module plans individually here.
WALK-IN WITH PERGOLA
The walk-in design is a full-height module that stands about seven-and-a-half feet (2.3 meters) tall. The people door opens outward for easy entry.
You can train vining plants up the side and over the pergola to provide beauty, scent, and shade — even vegetables. There are many options inside for adding perches and other interesting features for your pets.
If your coop or hutch doesn’t have a roof overhang (something like the Eglu, for instance), you could connect it directly to the walk-in module. If it’s small enough, you could enclose it within this module. Otherwise, you would connect your housing via a quarter- or half-height module.
Purchase walk-in module plans individually here.
OPTIONAL CORRUGATED ROOF
It’s a shed-style roof that can be built with polycarbonate panels or other corrugated roofing material. Instructions are included when you purchase the plans for the quarter-height module, half-height module, or the complete set. . .
Again, The Garden Run is not intended to be your animals’ primary shelter, but having some cover over part of their enclosed run — either permanently or seasonally — can offer shade in the summer and more space to roam when it’s raining or snowing.
Secure your chicken run. From the ground up.
Each Garden Run design is built on a foundation that protects your pets from digging pests, raccoons, foxes, and other predators while elevating the structure and holding a good amount of bedding.
If you prefer, you can leave the modules open at the bottom and set them directly on the ground, on skids (like The Garden Ark), or over a garden bed. Or you can raise them on blocks (like The Garden Coop and The Garden Loft) with hardware cloth trenched or flared around the perimeter.
Grow something beautiful on top of your chicken run.
From the start, it has been our goal to design structures that allow your animals and gardens to live in harmony. The garden top on the half-height design does this exceptionally well. It’s part herb garden, part green roof, and it provides shade while elevating flowers or succulents to where you can enjoy them more.
The pergola on the walk-in design is another example, where foliage can flow up and over to shade your pets while softening the line between structure and garden.
Connect, configure, and create the ideal backyard chicken habitat.
The possibilities are yours to explore. The best place to start is to decide what you want to build and how it will connect to your coop, hutch, or other housing. The plans include instructions for framing the connection on your housing and adding a pop door, if needed.
Add an enclosed run to your stand-alone chicken coop, built level or on a slope. . .
Extend your walk-in coop with a pergola and a raised herb garden. . .
Dock your mobile chicken tractor to a more spacious yard with gardens. . .
Or create a varied outdoor habitat for your housecats or other small pets.
Whatever your vision, The Garden Run is a flexible way to realize it. And it looks and functions beautifully to keep your animals secure.
Of course, as with all our plans, there’s as much fun in building to the specs as there is in making the designs your own. So feel free to use the ideas, techniques, and sample configurations in the plans as a jumping off point for your own creativity!
Buy your chicken run plans together — or one at a time.
There are two ways to buy The Garden Run plans:
THE COMPLETE SERIES
If you plan on building two or more designs — either now or later — this is likely the best value. The full plan includes—
- detailed overview
- complete tools list
- tips on materials and techniques
- detailed materials lists, cut lists, and step-by-step instructions for ALL THREE modules, plus the optional roof in two sizes
- instructions on how to connect the modules to your coop or hutch
- sample configurations to get you started
You get a ton of information this way (80 pages worth!) at a nice discount over buying the sections individually. Having the full plan gives you the flexibility to create the best setup to connect with your coop, hutch, or other housing, and you can build the modules at your own pace. Bundle it with a coop plan and save even more!
A LA CARTE
If you prefer to build just one of the designs, you can get the plans for just that module. It’s the exact same eBook, just without the pages for the modules you’re not interested in. So you can save on costs by getting only what you need. Click below to see the individual listings:
- Quarter-height plans
- Half-height with garden top plans
- Walk-in with pergola plans
Note, the quarter-height and half-height only plans both include the instructions for the optional roofing.
Also keep in mind that the a la carte versions are meant to stand alone. So if you buy more than one, there will be some repetition between documents, but you can always choose to print only the additional pages you need.
WATCH: Our chickens’ first foray into The Garden Run
We have since added perches, grazing frames, an herb/succulent garden (on top of the half-height module), a small roof, and vining jasmine. Yet even without those features, you can see that the hens are very much engaged in the run right from the start, moving from one “room” to another to forage together or separately.