Can I let birds freerange with Pinless Peepers?

[ChickenWisperer]

Can I?

 

[Buck Creek Chickens]

yes

 

[ChickenWisperer]

Quote:
And they still get around fine? Is there any added risk of loss to predators with them on? What about them wandering off?

 

[gritsar]

I would never allow chickens to free range with pinless peepers on. It would be taking away one of their defenses against predators. Just MHO.

 

[abhaya]

I dont I have them in a run till they are about 2 months

 

[Buck Creek Chickens]

they get around fine, and if you have predators peepers or no peepers are not going to matter, I have geese with my free rangers they warn everyone if something is a miss, i do keep a roo around as a warning system for my hens no peppers on him

 

[boxermom]

Mine were fine. But like the last post, my roos did not have peepers on.

 

[ChickenWisperer]

I do have a roo, but he is in a separate run/coop and isn't allowed to range with the girls. One of them is just too small to handle his "eagerness".

I've seen goshawks once, but dad doesn't seem to think either of them are big enough to carry them off if they come back, and I doubt they will as dad shot at him. There's nothing else around here, except the coyotes but they only run at night on the opposite side of the road.

I'm still unsure.

 

[Uzuri]

If you're free-ranging I can't imagine why you'd need them. Seems like the most common use for them is overcrowding, followed by poor feeding. If you're free ranging overcrowding isn't an issue, and you need to be feeding correctly no matter what, so if you free range, you might find that you can take them off

 

[ChickenWisperer]

Quote:
This is what I was thinking. This problem only started when the big snowstorm come through here and they were inside the coop exclusively for quite some time. I still don't understand as they all had over 3 feet of floorspace per bird.

I haven't seen any featherpicking since. We are going to open the run up tomorrow. Before now, the snow had melted and froze, leaving the run nothing but a sheet of ice.

The only problem is that mom wants one of the two birds we have inside to go out. The one she wants out was picked on a while ago, and is still growing feathers back in. She can't go back into the flock without having everything ripped out, I'm sure, without the peepers. The one she doesn't mind keeping in is our favorite, has bumblefoot on both feet now and is in the middle of molt. I would put them in the extra, small coop - but Ramses is currently occupying it.

We feed them as much layer crumble ration as they want, and when it gets cold they get all the scratch they want too, as our coop isn't insulated and we try not to use the heatlamp if possible. We've started making them mush, from "hog feed" for extra protein as well as giving them tuna (which they love).

I'm thinking I'm going to put some leaves/etc in the run, with scratch and whatnot, and see how they do. I'll keep the peepers just in case they have to stay inside again. What do you guys think of that?