Geodesic dome aviary covering

My wife really likes geodesic domes. A friend has offered to give us a 16ft metal dome frame (similar to the one in the picture below) that she doesn't use.  We need a sheltered aviary for chickens we'd like to get soon. I have well over 200ft of 4ft wide rolls of 1/2" hardware cloth that I got on sale awhile back that was intended for a chicken run, but I hadn't foreseen a free 16ft metal geodesic dome coming our way (we will be giving our friend a lot of eggs, compost and produce to thank her).

My question is, can anyone come up with a reasonable easy, sound and neat method for covering a metal framed geodesic dome with hardware cloth? I can only think of ways that would involve a lot of messy seams/folds (if wrapped in horizontal layers) or sharp cut edges (if cut in triangular pieces), and a ton of tedious "sowing" of the hardware cloth to the frame and between pieces. Anyone have a better idea? Am I just looking for nails because I just got offered a free hammer?

We kept chickens and ducks for years at our old 1/2acre place near the coast in a modified old greenhouse that had been inexplicably built to the north of a much larger barn, and had been further shaded as it was grown over by a large maple tree. It was an exceedingly temperate climate down there in the heart of redwood country. Under the maple and surrounded by hugel beds and forest, temperature extremes and wind were just not an issue for the birds. Unlike up where we are now, keeping them dry and facilitating drainage was the main challenge. So I built an absorption-drainage-runoff system that I posted about under the somewhat tongue-in-cheek title "Hugel-chinampas, now with Duckoponic Swales!" If I do say so myself, that system was a pretty good adaptation of a bass-ackwards property layout that we took on when we bought that fixer upper, but it's a very different context up in the mountains just a few miles east, where we are starting our bird setup from scratch.  This 16ft geodesic dome seems like pretty good way to provide birds a nice, protected permanent place to be when we are not able to move them around regularly, and we have a naturally well drained ridge-line spot where the manure runoff will naturally spread through our food forest and hugel beds downhill.

I've put this off because I've had a bit of analysis paralysis about where to place the birds, we have enjoyed not having the daily bird chores as we do many other things as we get this place planted and set up, and until recently friends' chickens provided us with plenty of eggs. Our old place's buyer has even kept many of our birds into their dotage, essentially as pets, and has let us take manured bedding as we want for compost. However, it's a ways to go for a pile of chicken manure, and now that our chicken hoarding friend has moved back to Pennsylvania, we are in need of eggs.  Moreover, the garden and 600 trees I've planted on mostly rocky dirt could use some manure and beneficial bird activity around them. However, many of the trees are still small enough to be vulnerable to birds being allowed to roam freely around them, and I've had it with rebuilding hugel beds every day after birds hop their fence to scratch them down. So I want to be able to keep them happy and safe in a fairly large enclosed space that is easy to access and amidst the garden and food forest, but where they can be kept off sensitive plants easily. We also have a very healthy raptor and mammalian predator population. So while our Pyrenees-Akbash has always been a good bird protector when we are good LGD owners, we do like to bring him on backpacking trips and he has charmed his way into being a house dog whenever he wants. He's one hell of a good snuggle.  So we need a predator proof run/aviary, and I plan to also build chicken tunnels or a small chicken tractor for moving the birds around the garden and food forest.

Any ideas on how you'd do this, or ways you've already done similarly, would be of great help, thanks!

You may be able to wrap the mesh around the first layer of triangles and cut slits to neaten it up at the frame as needed, and work your way up.
I think as you get higher triangles may be the way.
There will be lots of stitching at the ground level, but stainless steel cable ties may be better up higher.
A curved needle, such as a 'bag 'needle' may help.
Scaffolding on the outside of some design may make it easier.

https://www.ziptiedomes.com/

Zip Tie Domes has pages of resources on their website.

Will have lots of photos of Aviary and poultry domes and such.

HAVE FUN!

as you scroll down first page, there are reviews galore about coops and more.Folks share what they covered the domes with and how they did it

they have videos showing how to cover dome with plastic and other materials.

I admit that geodesic domes are adorable and built certain ways are both efficient and very strong at resisting certain weather conditions, you have already determined the big downside - efficiently attaching covering material!

I totally agree with using hardware cloth instead of chicken wire. Chicken wire is easier to work with, but not nearly strong enough to keep bad guys out. Places we've used it have failed, and as time allows, we've been upgrading to hardware cloth. That said, the later is less forgiving to work with.

Most of the places I've used it, I've screwed it to the frame with either fender washers or homemade sheet metal rectangles that are long and thin with two holes punched in them. Yes - time consuming, but we've had some failures with zip ties degrading or going brittle, so it's a balance between more work up front, or replacing over time.

However, is this strictly a run, or a run/coop combined? Chickens do not really like "open" - they descended from Jungle Fowl, not open plains. From my experience, they like cover much of their day. So I would consider other options for covering parts of the dome, unless you think you can get lots of plants growing that the chickens won't destroy, that need the light and that will give them places to hide. That depends on bird density and management. If it's their "Fort Knox" for when you need them safe, you may need to use a deep mulch system to absorb their poop, and move pots of plants in for them to forage from and look at how to use the vertical space effectively. Hanging planters with chicken edible plants in them would give shade for example, or train thorn-less blackberries over the shelter.

I certainly wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but I also would take the time to do it right and that will probably require a fair bit of cutting and keeping sharp edges to the outside.

Thanks for your thoughtful responses.

This is meant to be their bomb-proof spot that they can stay in for at least a week if needed, with their roost and nest boxes inside. The nest boxes will be accessible from outside. I would like to put in a full sized door that can allow a wheelbarrow through.

I want to be able to leave town for a week for a family emergency or backpacking trip or whatever without feeling bad about the birds living conditions, or asking too much of a house sitter. We want to be able to stay out with friends and not have to be back by dark to close up the birds, because they can be safe and happy in a nice, safe habitat even when they don't get let out that day. Once they're attached to their roost and will come back inside on their own for the night, we'd like to give them some time to free range for ticks etc an hour before dark in our fenced zone 1-2 garden and food forest under the watch of our LGD.  Still, I want their aviary/run to be sufficient for predator protection without our LDG's presence to be needed at all times. This would include black bears, cougars, fox, weasels, fisher, raccoons, raptors and snakes.
As its going on a rocky ridgeline, I will put a 1ft hardware cloth skirt around the dome, staked or weighted down.

I'll build triangular chicken tunnels that can spur off from the dome, or go on raised beds to be turned over, but this will be supplementary.
To make it a viable longterm habitat even when they can't be let out, it will have deep bedding that I will compost for my garden and trees. We have an abundance of forest debris and pine straw for bedding, and gathering it will be a part of wildfire mitigation projects I'm doing anyway. This is the primary ongoing input along with food.

The spot I have in mind has young cherry and plum trees to the north, mulberry to west, and a 20ft sparse knobcone pine to the south. So they will eventually get dappled shade and food dropping around the dome. Until the canopy establishes we will use shade cloth, and potentially a cob or ferrocement layer over the hardware cloth to the west for a cooler shaded spot in the dome.

One question that comes to mind is whether anyone has a better way than tin-snips to make the triangles' long straight cuts in hardware cloth? I am thinking something akin to the paper cutters we used in art class. I also think it might work to make pieces covering three triangles each in order to reduce the cuts and sewing needed

Ben Zumeta wrote:

One question that comes to mind is whether anyone has a better way than tin-snips to make the triangles' long straight cuts in hardware cloth?

I discussed this with Hubby.

First off, we never use tin-snips. For smaller jobs than this we use a sturdy pair of diagonal cutters (wire cutters).

If you know anyone with a metal shear, that would be the best way.

He's never tried this, but he bought a pair of hand-held electric sheet metal shears that might do the job, but you'd need to find a way to clamp the material really well.

Possible option, set yourself up a jig arrangement so you can clamp the hardware cloth between wood with a narrow "cutting gap". Use an abrasive cutting zip disc - not anything with teeth - on an angle grinder and cut down the gap. Wear *all* necessary safety gear - if it were me, that would include both safety glasses and a face shield and some sort of breathing protection. Hardware cloth is normally steel with a zinc coating, but that zinc has some lead with it (that's how geology makes it). Hand cutting is not such a big issue, but if you try the zip disc, there will be lots of small particles in the air that you would want to protect yourself from. As with all things, the dose makes the poison.

Hmmm.... Cutting individual triangles might be the most efficient use of materials, but once you've got this on site and assembled, I'm wondering if you could cut multiple pieces designed to cover 2 triangles with a bend over the center strut? That won't decrease the cutting by a huge amount, but it will be one less edge/triangle with sharp pokey bits.

I'm a sucker for a dome, (check my profile to see the dome that I built to function as a trellis/arbor for hardy kiwi), but the idea of trying to cover it in anything has given me enough pause that I'll likely use a more conventional shape for a future greenhouse.  If I were set on using a dome to enclose my hens, I would cut shapes out of hardware cloth (Jay Angler's idea of cutting adjacent triangles out together and folding on the line seems like the smartest one) and then follow up with a "cover" piece on the outside to hold down and cover all of the sharp seams.  Something as small as a furring strip would probably be fine if it was made of something rot resistant like cedar, stained, or otherwise protected (I suspect a 1x2 could be charred and oiled a la shou sugi ban).  At that point the most interesting engineering challenge is creating a door that you can walk and get tools like a wheelbarrow through that also fastens securely.