Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us!

[bj taylor]

JenellYB; i hope you keep those mcmansion builders at bay for a very long time. i was wondering about the line crisscrossed over the top to discourage hawks. i may have to try that. thanks

 

[JenellYB]

Yeah, me too--holding the mcmansion builders at bay a long time---lol....honestly the last few years, I have come to feeldifferently about my home, my community, where I was once so content I'd never think I'd want to leave, but for just thesekinds of changes, I think if I were stronger and had better resources, I've reached the point I'd be ready to find out just how much one ofthem would like to have this property, which one is ready to put their money where their mouth is, and relocate. But...as it is..

The twine. it really works pretty well. it sounds like it would look tacky, maybe, but not really, if you use a very fine, like kite twine, it 'dissapears' from visibility not that far away. Ine thing about it I should mention....use a cottom twine, something that is flimsy and WILL breakdown, deteriorate, and not think to choose a stronger more durable synthetic fiber. The reason being, the stuff IS going to fall here and there, natural fibers will both just break when hit by the lawn mower and such...what falls and is laying around will just naturally disintegrate. Strong durable twine intended to stay strong forever is most annoying when pieces of it are laying everywhere, you have to keep stopped the mower to pull the stuff out.

JenellYB; i hope you keep those mcmansion builders at bay for a very long time. i was wondering about the line crisscrossed over the top to discourage hawks. i may have to try that. thanks

 

[JenellYB]

Some thoughts for those that would want to integrate the benefits of 'free range' into their flock management in a sensible and practical way...

Provide a very limited time on free range. I found 2 hours about right. If you turn a flock out and notice, they are hungry for what goodies they may find, do a lot of scratching and pecking, then start settling down for some dust baths and relaxation. Ideally, put them up just before they get rested and start getting active again. That 2nd period of activity is when they start getting into trouble, curiously ranging out into new territory, looking for handy places to hide eggs later, looking for potential attractive roosting places outside the coop.

Simplify getting them back up by using the last 2 hours, or even just an hour if that's all you have after getting home from work or such, before it gets dark enough they start going to roost. They will put themselves up. You can bolster an early return to the coop by tossing down a bit of grain,or the evening's kitchen scraps, in the coop as daylight fades, giving them a few minutes to enjoy that before they want to hit the roosts. Getting them in those few minutes before they would head in otherwise helps get them in before that especially dangerous, high predator risk time, dusk.

Multiple advantage to the limited time in late evening...

The short time plus natural return to roost means they have less oportunity to go wandering far and wide. They will stay close.

Most egg laying for the day is done, fewer having to look for a place to lay an egg. The less time to seek out hidden places to lay plus keeping them close plus keeping the return to coop habit to go to roost strong, will make it more likely they will choose to return to the coop if they do feel the urge to lay.

If you find you are having to have an easter egg hunt every day, you are turning them out too early and leaving them out too long.

If you are finding they are ranging farther out than safe and comfortable, you are leaving them out too long.

If you are having problems with some trying to stay out and seek their own roosting location outside the coop, you are leaving them out too long and too late.

If you have already 'spoiled' them in any of the things above, you need to retrain them. Take away their free range time entirely a while. Inconvenient, yes, but worth it in the long term. Replace some of the things they get free ranging by tossing in things like yard clipping, even some shovels of dirt to scratch through a bit, some earthworms from the compost. Don't let them out again until they stop trying to beat down and mob the door everytime you walk near or try to enter the coop.
Then start by giving them only a half an hour or an hour later in the evening, but also bring them back into the coop earlier. If neccesary, consider short-feeding them during the day, so they are hungry and more eager to come back to the coop when you throw down food and refill feeders. Do this early enough they have time to eat it before roost.

 

[RattlesnakeRidgeWV]

JenellYB
I agree 100% with the late in the afternoon free range. I have been doing that for the last year and it works perfect. They put themselves to bed and there is no wandering off and getting ate!!!
All I have to do is lock them up at dusk.

 

[Beekissed]

Quote:
Here's where we differ in opinion!

Free ranging is very realistic and I wouldn't keep a chicken any other way. It is often the chicken owner's expectations that are unrealistic rather than the actual act of free ranging. Free ranging doesn't mean that chickens roam the neighborhood uninhibited. Nowadays it means they have a broad area of forage that is not depleted by their ranging over it....I'd venture to say that, if part of your range is denuded, you don't have enough area to free range the flock you now possess. Either cut back on birds or free up some range, because the grass/forage should not suffer and the birds should not be that overstocked.

Free ranging is not a wide open prairie situation anymore but rather managed pasturing of your chickens with adequate safety measures in place. It could mean letting them forage in a very large perimeter fence or moving their ranging via the use of a tractor or electro-netting. Free ranging doesn't have to be the proverbial dinner bell for preds nor does it mean that chickens lay their eggs willy-nilly all over their range area. Someone adept at free ranging their flocks has usually learned when the birds need retraining to the nest, what areas to look for that would be potential nesting spots outside the coop and has a pretty good idea when egg counts are down, which could indicate some birds are laying out.

Free ranging is not as simple as turning out some chickens...it does take some managing. It is a very realistic method of husbandry and requires a little more work than just penning up a flock in a run but I find the initial outlay of work is offset by the health of the free ranged flock, the sheer flock dynamics that takes place in an area big enough to provide safe interaction, and the obviously better life provided by the open space and freedom of movement and living.

Predators are easily deterred by LGDs and appropriate shelter from aerial attacks, but if these are not available to you, they can be created by electric poultry netting(said to stop black bears even) and created hides for the chickens to use for duck and cover within their ranging area.

I agree that most people free ranging on this forum go into it with very unrealistic expectations~ but the method of free ranging is not an unrealistic goal or endeavor.

 

[JenellYB]

Lol, I think we have a common use of language mismatch here...maybe regional? I don't know. But i think its applied terminology rather than principle we differ in on this one.
But what you are descrbing, the chickens given a good sized FENCED area, is what I've always heard called "Yard" chickens. "Free range" is in local traditions, without physical barrier, fences. That is how I remember my older generation reffering to them, and the older long time neighbors/flock keepers calling them. Maybe it goes back to my Texas rural heritage, in which even when I moved up here to this rural county in 1972, we found we had moved into the middle of still raging "range wars" between the old timers that had free ranged their cattle under Texas' old "open range laws" for generations, and people like us, city and suburbanites moving out here to the country to take up the homesteading life. I soon learned that to have a garden meant building a fortified stockade around it, and having cattle meant enclosing our tame puny little cows and calves within fencing built to withstand the onslought of the wandering herds of HUGE wild Brahma mixes, or find one morning out fences torn through like they were nothing more than a briar thicket, and our own cows vanished into the woods and thickets with the wild ones. If you had your cattle branded, you might get them back in a few months, next time all the old families trouped out with their horses and packs of black-mouth yellow and catahoula cow dogs to round up what they could of the herds, brand/earmark their calves, pull out feeders going to market. Same with hogs let run feral, rounded up and 'harvested' occasionally. Unfortunately, those cow herds were infested with bovine brucelosis, which meant if you did get your cows back, they were probably going to 'bang out' any way..ie test positive..and condemned for slaughter in a USDA approved manner and facility.

In the mid 80's, that reached the breaking point, as busy highways criss-crossed the area, and folks over at the local small municiple airports got tires of having to go change cows off the runways before planes could land. It made national news as something seeming quite hilarious to the rest of the country, I'm sure, that Liberty County had, after a 2 yr grace period/warning to owners, hired dozens of crews of cowboys to scour the woods and thickets and river bottoms to round them all up the cows and hogs and get rid of them. It took several years to get the job done on the cows. Unfortunately, many of the hogs still plague us, despite efforts to eradicate or at least control their numbers.

Now that you clarify current common meaning, it makes more sense to me now, having noticed some references I've run across in my recent 'chicken interest, that was describing "yard" chickens for purpose of calling the eggs "yard eggs" as actually most anything "freer" than cage batteries. Even bare areas with it seems a chicken per a couple sguare foot kind of set up. We call that, denuded bare pens, "pen chickens." That did puzzle me a bit.

See, learning, getting up to date here, lol!

Here's where we differ in opinion!

Free ranging is very realistic and I wouldn't keep a chicken any other way. It is often the chicken owner's expectations that are unrealistic rather than the actual act of free ranging. Free ranging doesn't mean that chickens roam the neighborhood uninhibited. Nowadays it means they have a broad area of forage that is not depleted by their ranging over it....I'd venture to say that, if part of your range is denuded, you don't have enough area to free range the flock you now possess. Either cut back on birds or free up some range, because the grass/forage should not suffer and the birds should not be that overstocked.

Free ranging is not a wide open prairie situation anymore but rather managed pasturing of your chickens with adequate safety measures in place. It could mean letting them forage in a very large perimeter fence or moving their ranging via the use of a tractor or electro-netting. Free ranging doesn't have to be the proverbial dinner bell for preds nor does it mean that chickens lay their eggs willy-nilly all over their range area. Someone adept at free ranging their flocks has usually learned when the birds need retraining to the nest, what areas to look for that would be potential nesting spots outside the coop and has a pretty good idea when egg counts are down, which could indicate some birds are laying out.

Free ranging is not as simple as turning out some chickens...it does take some managing. It is a very realistic method of husbandry and requires a little more work than just penning up a flock in a run but I find the initial outlay of work is offset by the health of the free ranged flock, the sheer flock dynamics that takes place in an area big enough to provide safe interaction, and the obviously better life provided by the open space and freedom of movement and living.

Predators are easily deterred by LGDs and appropriate shelter from aerial attacks, but if these are not available to you, they can be created by electric poultry netting(said to stop black bears even) and created hides for the chickens to use for duck and cover within their ranging area.

I agree that most people free ranging on this forum go into it with very unrealistic expectations~ but the method of free ranging is not an unrealistic goal or endeavor.

 

[Fred's Hens]

Terms are used, abused and slung around, I'll grant you that.

Bee isn't one those, however, in my reading of her posts.

We have lots of folks here on BYC, with handkerchief sized back yards, who when they loose them from their teeny, tiny cages (also called "runs") refer to the hour they allow the birds to peck at some of the 300 square feet of back yard, as "free ranging".

But, there are no wordsmith police who define free ranging as having access to a minimum of an acre or two. It is what it is. I've long since given up trying to explain to folks that what is described as free ranging, most of the time, is merely yarding at best.

We have a wide, wide range of experiences here on BYC.

 

[daver]

Terms are used, abused and slung around, I'll grant you that.

Bee isn't one those, however, in my reading of her posts.

We have lots of folks here on BYC, with handkerchief sized back yards, who when they loose them from their teeny, tiny cages (also called "runs") refer to the hour they allow the birds to peck at some of the 300 square feet of back yard, as "free ranging".

But, there are no wordsmith police who define free ranging as having access to a minimum of an acre or two. It is what it is. I've long since given up trying to explain to folks that what is described as free ranging, most of the time, is merely yarding at best.

We have a wide, wide range of experiences here on BYC.

I am new to chickens and have been confused by some of the terms used. I can't use the term farm fresh, I don't have a farm. We have 2.5 acres in the country, 2/3rds of it wooded. Can't call letting chickens out in the evening free ranging. Just don't have the set up for that. Factor in predators and it's just not feasible.

That being said, I do exactly as Jenell described. I let them out of the run to forage about two hours before sunset. Lately about four o'clock. They do exactly as Jenell described earlier, beak about a bit, head for their fav dust bathing spot under the back deck, then go exploring until dark. All too easy.

So my point is, I let our birds "forage" about everyday. I find that to be more accurate than free range, pastured or farm fresh.

Dave

 

[babymakes6]

We have 2 acres out in the country. I have turkeys, ducks, one Silkie rooster, and my Orpingtons in one flock, which I do free-range all day long. We have large fields around our house and they do use them. I have never lost one to any predator except dogs, which does happen occasionally. I expect the occasional loss by doing it this way, but it definitely is much better for the birds, so I will take that chance. My bantams are penned in another coop and I do not free-range them. They are more valuable to me, as well as more vulnerable to predators.

 

[bj taylor]

when y'all refer to creating places for chickens to hide from hawks, what kind of cover do you provide. my run is not covered & isn't readily visible, but once a hawk finds it, the chickens won't have safety. planting shrubs doesn't seem feasible, so i'm guessing i need to come up with artificial cover.