My husband and I moved to five acres and cleared the land and built a house. It is still a work in progress after four years. We just finished building the front porch. We had chickens at our previous suburban home but they brought out the farmer in me so we moved to create a farm. I had three chickens then. Now I have between 40 and 50 losing some to age and a couple of to predators and taking in strays and unwanted hens (no roosters thank you). Currenty there are 43 hens and two roosters. We disposed of one rooster recently due to his rude behavior chasing the hens and attacking them to get the food. I luckily found this site five years ago and have been very successful building up and egg business getting almost two dozen a day. My only problem is providing them grass and bugs. I have a very large run 40 feet by 40 feet with a lovely shade tree in the back part. There are a few bushes in the run but the birds don't seem to like the taste of them. They "fly the coop" over the 7 foot high fencing off and on so they get some grass but they have eaten every blade in the run and if I try sod they consume it quickly and it gets expensive. I feed them the left over vegetables but I don't think that is quite enough. What do people do to get grass in the run? Do they really need grass?
