Coopless and I let my chickens free range the neighborhood

[Kris5902]

Some areas I have seen have surprisingly high forage abundance interspersed among buildings and patches of concrete. A given city / urban setting can very greatly from another. I have also seen the chickens roaming streets. It is done, but community needs to be accepting of it.

Community is the key point there! When you move out to the country and have acreage, you tend to lose some of that community aspect... I miss my neighbors from the city... I traded backyard produce across my “keep my cats in my own yard” lattice fence with my Chinese neighbors that spoke as much English as I did Mandarin. Bartered some maintinece tasks for loaning tools to others, and knew almost everyone in the block by name. Thread sorts of communities are becoming a thing of the past though... I think that we bought in a “rougher” working class neighborhood had a lot to do with our experience.

I was also seriously considering starting a community raised bed vegetable garden on the city boulevard I was expected to mow... but never quite got around to the guerrilla gardening I wanted to do on it.

 

[Dead Diamonds]

I said urban but really its more suburban. On google maps, I'm in a sea of neighborhood streets and houses, just a few minutes south of the actual downtown tall buildings. Its a blue collar neighborhood, so the lawns tend to be more "natural".

Off topic: Everywhere I've moved to, I try to encourage people to come out of their homes (sarcophagus's) and build a community feel. The last poor neighborhood I lived in, I transformed it by playing my casio keyboard on my front stoop. Next thing you know we had a neighborhood weekly jam band. And now it seems this time it's chickens making the neighbors come out. One neighbor told me he's been living here for 4 years and never even spoke to a single neighbor until the chickens showed up. I'm surprised to hear it's not like that in the country. My goal is to one day be a rancher.

 

[WindingRoad]

I said urban but really its more suburban. On google maps, I'm in a sea of neighborhood streets and houses, just a few minutes south of the actual downtown tall buildings. Its a blue collar neighborhood, so the lawns tend to be more "natural".

Off topic: Everywhere I've moved to, I try to encourage people to come out of their homes (sarcophagus's) and build a community feel. The last poor neighborhood I lived in, I transformed it by playing my casio keyboard on my front stoop. Next thing you know we had a neighborhood weekly jam band. And now it seems this time it's chickens making the neighbors come out. One neighbor told me he's been living here for 4 years and never even spoke to a single neighbor until the chickens showed up. I'm surprised to hear it's not like that in the country. My goal is to one day be a rancher.

Where do you live?

 

[Kris5902]

I said urban but really its more suburban. On google maps, I'm in a sea of neighborhood streets and houses, just a few minutes south of the actual downtown tall buildings. Its a blue collar neighborhood, so the lawns tend to be more "natural".

Off topic: Everywhere I've moved to, I try to encourage people to come out of their homes (sarcophagus's) and build a community feel. The last poor neighborhood I lived in, I transformed it by playing my casio keyboard on my front stoop. Next thing you know we had a neighborhood weekly jam band. And now it seems this time it's chickens making the neighbors come out. One neighbor told me he's been living here for 4 years and never even spoke to a single neighbor until the chickens showed up. I'm surprised to hear it's not like that in the country. My goal is to one day be a rancher.

There’s still community, and if you get involved in local groups and events... but when you’ve got a few miles between you and your closest neighbor, it definitely changes things... best of luck to you and your chickens! They are gateway livestock... so you could be closer to becoming a rancher than you realize!

 

[Dead Diamonds]

Update:

Unfortunately, a couple days ago, they didn't come home at the end of the day. No idea what happened to them. No sign of feathers anywhere along my side of the street that they roamed. They never went far, the farthest they would go is 5 houses down the block. But I looked all along there closely and didn't see any feathers.

 

[1cock2hens]

Update:

Unfortunately, a couple days ago, they didn't come home at the end of the day. No idea what happened to them. No sign of feathers anywhere along my side of the street that they roamed. They never went far, the farthest they would go is 5 houses down the block. But I looked all along there closely and didn't see any feathers.

srry to hear that, probably got "rescued".

 

[pibb]

I've seen posts on craigslist for "free chickens". Descriptions say something along the lines of: free ranging chickens or chickens left by owner, free, just come and catch them. That makes me think of what may have happened to your chickens.

Here is an example:
https://knoxville.craigslist.org/zip/d/powell-rooster-and-chickens/6825874597.html

 

[Ol Grey Mare]

Update:

Unfortunately, a couple days ago, they didn't come home at the end of the day. No idea what happened to them. No sign of feathers anywhere along my side of the street that they roamed. They never went far, the farthest they would go is 5 houses down the block. But I looked all along there closely and didn't see any feathers.

Unfortunately, this was a pretty predictable outcome.....

 

[bobbi-j]

Update:

Unfortunately, a couple days ago, they didn't come home at the end of the day. No idea what happened to them. No sign of feathers anywhere along my side of the street that they roamed. They never went far, the farthest they would go is 5 houses down the block. But I looked all along there closely and didn't see any feathers.

Could be something big enough to carry them off without leaving a feather trail behind got them (fox, coyote, or dog would be my first thoughts). Not a surprise ending.

 

[Kris5902]

Free ranging... you need to be prepared to lose chickens to predators, urban or rural, 4 legged or 2, or the dreaded “death from above”. Hopefully they were the 2 legged sort, and your girls will be well taken care of somewhere. So Sorry for your loss.