Does anyone else Free Range?

[superdeluxe]

Our hens free range, we have a half acre of trees/brush/grasses. When they are not forging on the grass they like to hang out in between the treez

 

[Bogtown Chick]

The crows love to removed the newly sewn seeds in my vegetable garden. Especially the broad white ones...like pumpkin, squash, cucumbers and such. But since we've added the chickens I don't mind the crows. I replant or now seed the pumpkins in pots and take them out to the garden once they've germinated.

The roo still gives his heads up trill when they fly over...but it's all in good practice. We have a Bald Eagle nest two properties down...I fear that some of the larger pines in my yard will be candidates for new nests next with the growing population. For the most part though the eagles like cruising the lake nearby...so there's that diversion for them and plus the good eyes on the rooster.

Thanks City farm. I'm humbled by your compliments. It's far from perfect-- that coop. The wind blows snow in it all winter long on the NW side. On a blizzard night there's a tiny snow drift inside the coop...but what it lacks in sound building skills it makes up for in charm with the recycled materials. I do like the door and windows I saved. That Old Timey looking stuff has always been appealing to me. I was offered some newer white tin for the roof and I knew I didn't want it. I wanted some rusted up currogated steel for the roof. I held out and low and behold found some at the In-laws. They saved it from their parents' Dairy Barn after a fire. Used it on a small garage. then when that was tore down used it for a wood shed and had these few scraps left over. What luck. This tin is seeing it's 4th generation of family farm buildings. I love that about that tin. LOL. It's all sort of been passed down like old family jewelry.

The free range nest box was hammered out in a night. Necessity is the mother of invention on that one. Can't have pullets wondering around aimlessly or creating secret stashes.

The seating area is for "short people" . My kids got it as a gift from their grandmother. I wish sometimes my legs were a little shorter and my butt a little smaller so I could sit there and have a nice little bit of tea and watch the hens come and go. LOL. But I have some plans to landscape down at the coop and am envisioning a glider bench or some sort of seating with some ornamental grasses or shrubbery to provide cover and beauty around the coop for the chooks. Can hardly wait for this snow to melt away.

We're nearing 60's the chooks are almost able to access all the property. there's a few snow drifts and low spots full of snow that are keeping them from their summer forages...but we're getting there...Thank goodness.

 

[heartsizedfarm]

Read BeeKissed suggestions on safe free range and realized one problem my chickens have is that the free range area just outside their coop is actually a very open sheep meadow. So they're very exposed if they wander too far from home. Sometimes they gravitate towards the more protected area by the compost and veg garden but often they just wander out into open fields.

We lost some big branches in the ice storm and I was going to just make firewood and mulch this spring. But this morning I dragged the ones I could drag into the sheep field and I'll make little branch bunkers for the chickens throughout the field. A place to scurry if a hawk is sighted.

 

[Bethel3330]

Wow, I'm really loving this thread! Such wonderful information.
We are getting our first chickens soon. Well, my first. My husband had them when he still lived at home. We're building a coop this weekend and buying some 6 week old pullets from a nearby small farm. They are alreadyin a coop there. We plan to let ours roam around in the evenings after work and the weekends as much as possible. How long should I keep this group confined before letting them out of the run? I'll keep a close eye on them until they're grown because we have an outside cat. I just wondered how long it takes before they consider the coop home?

 

[Desert]

We started free-ranging our flock once we got over the initial fear of them dying or any of the insane amount of other bad things we read on this site. We raised them in a bath tub until we felt comfortable and the poor things had to suffer while we slowly learned that chickens don't just DIE.

Since then we've let them free-range and they love it, plus so do we.

They eat a lot healthier that way, keep all the nasty bugs eaten so we don't have to worry about being bitten, and overall I'd say I like this setup way better than what some of my family members do, which is to confine them to a nasty dirt pad 24/7 with a very low overhead of wire.

The only thing I'd have to complain about is the constant comments from people about how unsafe they are.

"There are hawks, coyotes, snakes, skunks, raccoons, and they're all going to eat your chickens!"
"They'll run away!"
"You'll never be able to find their eggs!"

And so on.

We've never had any of the problems people warn us about but then again, those people don't have chickens so I'm not sure if they're basing what they say on fact or just basing it on some stupid stuff they've read.

 

[heartsizedfarm]

Wow, I'm really loving this thread! Such wonderful information.
We are getting our first chickens soon. Well, my first. My husband had them when he still lived at home. We're building a coop this weekend and buying some 6 week old pullets from a nearby small farm. They are alreadyin a coop there. We plan to let ours roam around in the evenings after work and the weekends as much as possible. How long should I keep this group confined before letting them out of the run? I'll keep a close eye on them until they're grown because we have an outside cat. I just wondered how long it takes before they consider the coop home?

My hens were out dust-bathing in an old straw pile in the sunshine, and who was lying at the top of the straw pile? The barn cat, absolutely savage with sparrows and mice, but snuggled up in the sun with her chook BFFs.

 

[Searsmom]

All cats are individuals, but

Wow, I'm really loving this thread! Such wonderful information.
We are getting our first chickens soon. Well, my first. My husband had them when he still lived at home. We're building a coop this weekend and buying some 6 week old pullets from a nearby small farm. They are alreadyin a coop there. We plan to let ours roam around in the evenings after work and the weekends as much as possible. How long should I keep this group confined before letting them out of the run? I'll keep a close eye on them until they're grown because we have an outside cat. I just wondered how long it takes before they consider the coop home?

We have lots of barn cats. They don't usually bother the chickens and some of the chickens will chase them off - they weren't introduced until the chickens were about 12 weeks old. We observed them and yelled at the head cat a time or two and after that she went out of her way to avoid them, she was pretty special. That said, the cats favorite meal in the spring is wild turkey poult. They seem to get separated from their mama an unusual amount of time. If the chicks have a mama, I don't worry about them. If they're small yet - cat sized - and don't have a mama, I keep them in the coop for a couple of weeks. This has the benefit of also teaching them the coop is home. Some of the stupider pullets you may have to carry inside a time or two, but they figure it out eventually because they want to sleep with their friends.

 

[Bethel3330]

My hens were out dust-bathing in an old straw pile in the sunshine, and who was lying at the top of the straw pile? The barn cat, absolutely savage with sparrows and mice, but snuggled up in the sun with her chook BFFs.

I hope that is the case with mine!

 

[Bethel3330]

All cats are individuals, but
We have lots of barn cats. They don't usually bother the chickens and some of the chickens will chase them off - they weren't introduced until the chickens were about 12 weeks old. We observed them and yelled at the head cat a time or two and after that she went out of her way to avoid them, she was pretty special. That said, the cats favorite meal in the spring is wild turkey poult. They seem to get separated from their mama an unusual amount of time. If the chicks have a mama, I don't worry about them. If they're small yet - cat sized - and don't have a mama, I keep them in the coop for a couple of weeks. This has the benefit of also teaching them the coop is home. Some of the stupider pullets you may have to carry inside a time or two, but they figure it out eventually because they want to sleep with their friends.

Thank you for that! Mine is a former indoor cat and excellent mouser, and wild bird and mole killer. I don't expect he'll bother grown chickens, too much work. He doesn't stay in a barn, but in a cat house that's heated in the wintwr and he's fed daily and even gets some canned food. He hunts for sport and to bring us presents. Lol Spoiled rotten, I'd say.
The neighbors also have two little yappers that stand in our yard and bark at us. I'm looking forward to the first time a rooster gets after them ;-)

 

[Sydney Acres]

Read BeeKissed suggestions on safe free range and realized one problem my chickens have is that the free range area just outside their coop is actually a very open sheep meadow. So they're very exposed if they wander too far from home. Sometimes they gravitate towards the more protected area by the compost and veg garden but often they just wander out into open fields.

We lost some big branches in the ice storm and I was going to just make firewood and mulch this spring. But this morning I dragged the ones I could drag into the sheep field and I'll make little branch bunkers for the chickens throughout the field. A place to scurry if a hawk is sighted.

Years ago we lost a huge, thickly-branched limb out of one of our large trees. Getting it cleaned up got pushed further and further down our "to do" list, to the point that the downed limb became a permanent fixture, as it wasn't in the way. One February morning my favorite pet chicken was foraging near that tree when a young eagle attacked. There were two fistfuls of feathers about 5 feet away from the limb, and two fistfuls down inside the tangle of branches where the eagle had reached down inside as she was running. But she made it to an area where the eagle couldn't reach in, and if flew away as we came running outside. That downed tree limb saved her life! Free range chickens need places they can find cover if you live where raptors fly.