“Teaching” to Free Range

[hcdeshazer]

My girls are about 9 weeks old and are going outside regularly. We have nicer weather so I have been leaving the coop open for them to go out and find food and explore!
Very often I’ll check on them and find them all laying inside their coop. Enjoying the sun, but not eating. I then have been feeding them at night when I put them to bed. My concern is by feeding them I’m enabling them to not go out and find food. As a first time owner, I hesitant to cut out their feeding , but is that what I should do to encourage them to stay outside?

 

[wamtazlady]

Do not stop feeding them. They are more comfortable in the run so that is where they will spend most of their time. As they get older and a couple of them get braver they will begin to free range. Free ranging does not mean you do not have to supply food. It means that the chickens supplement the good diet you are feeding them with extra bugs and plants. Chickens and especially chicks the age of yours should have food available all day long.

 

[DucklingLover232]

I think you should put the food and water outside if they’re coop

 

[Shadrach]

My girls are about 9 weeks old and are going outside regularly. We have nicer weather so I have been leaving the coop open for them to go out and find food and explore!
Very often I’ll check on them and find them all laying inside their coop. Enjoying the sun, but not eating. I then have been feeding them at night when I put them to bed. My concern is by feeding them I’m enabling them to not go out and find food. As a first time owner, I hesitant to cut out their feeding , but is that what I should do to encourage them to stay outside?

No, you should not cut out their feed.
9 weeks old is still very young and I assume they have not had the benefit of a mother showing them what they can and can't eat, among many other things they learn from their parents.
I free range. All the chickens here are free range experienced and mother hatched and taught.
Having a rooster helps with flock cohesion when free ranging and this can be important when it comes to avoiding predators.
Let them learn in their own time. It's a very dangerous world out there.
I feed twice and day here despite there being better than average forage. Youngsters in particular need their food.
I would not feed in the coop. It will encourage rats and mice and anything else that eats chicken food and eats chicken!
Feed them outside, morning and evening and pick the feed up when you are certain that all of them have eaten enough.

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

I'd second (or is it third) the vote to put food/water outside the coop (not far to start) to encourage exploration. If you have an area you'd like them to scratch at, throw something that is a treat there to encourage them to an area.

 

[blackdog043]

Leave the food and water out for them all the time, where ever you have it now. They will venture out on their own more and stay out longer.

I leave my coop and run door open a lot, so they can free range. My chickens range from 1+ to 3 years, sometimes I find most of them in the run and next time their all out scratching in the woods or yard.

 

[Mtnboomer]

I do not free range my birds until they reach 4 mos old mainly because they are joining an established flock of adults and need to be big enough to hold their own during the initial pecking order squabbles. But my free range adult flock always has access to free-choice food and water. Their needs decrease dramatically in warmer weather as bugs, plants, and seeds are more available. Depending on the number of birds I have at any given time (typically between 8-14 adults and 12-15 juveniles in a coop/run) I provide about 200-225 lbs of feed a month in winter and about 75 lbs in summer.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don't know the backstory, what has been going on for how long. Are they sleeping outside? How much chance have you given them to get out and about? When I first open up the door for my brooder raised chicks all of them may be on the ground within 15 minutes. Sometimes it takes well into the third day before they all get outside. At first they usually hang around close to the coop but as time goes by they roam further. I typically have feed and water in the coop and outside.

Personally I don't try to force my chickens to do things like that, I leave them alone and let them work things out at their pace. I figure it is less stressful on me and less stressful on them if I relax and let them be chickens.

 

[Friendly_Lurker]

Make sure they have a hiding place from hawks.