I'm brand new to chickens. We have 80 acres with a home on it that we use as a cabin. We are generally there multiple times a week. I'm building a chicken coop that is 4x8. I'd like to allow the chickens to free range but also a safe place to stay. I was wondering if anyone has had any luck with a fenced in run that allowed the chickens to fly in and out as they please? Was thinking of putting electric fence around it to keep predators out. Any thoughts? TIA! Right now we have 9 week old chicks and 4 ducks.
I grew up on a 24,000 acre ranch and never even heard of a chicken run until I was well in my 20s. We kept at least 100 chickens around there, as well as ducks, geese, turkeys, guineas, peafowl, etc. The small door on the hen house was a hole, no door to it, and was never made to shut. All of my Aunts and Uncles, and people I knew as a kid, all had the same sort of set ups. They, also like us, for the most part had a yard full of dogs. Dogs that can't be trained to leave chickens alone didn't last long.
We almost always had half a dozen dogs, often more. Dogs well bred enough that pups sold well. We always had a few Aussies, or Border Collies to work cattle and horses. We kept a few sight hounds (Greyhound or Wolfhound) because not only did we want to keep coyotes away, we wanted them caught. Wyoming prime winter coyotes were $80+ back then in 1970s dollars, and we got many, easily well over 100 a year. We usually had a coon hound around too. They put intruding coons up in a tree (if they don't catch it first), and set off their alarm for you to come out and shoot it in the middle of the night. When coyotes, were $80, coons were $40 - $50. That's more than coyote cash, as it is way easier to get several times more coons than coyotes. My mom brought home a Basset Hound once and we laughed, we thought, there's a dog that'll never catch anything, but what we hadn't thought of was how much the other dogs paid attention to where she was going. They all had noses, but hers was the best, and even though she couldn't catch anything, she always found the most stuff to try to catch. When she found something, the chase was on, sight hounds in the lead, cow dogs flanking ready for quick turns, Coon Hounds not far behind yelping so the whole world knows there's a chase on, and Basset and miniature Poodle a mile behind wishing they could keep up. Miniature Poodle, you may ask, what can he do? Well he can pull a bunny out of an irrigation pipe, squeeze into under floors of sheds just off the ground, get into gaps in a pile of fence posts, etc. when he finally gets there. If he went in a pipe, every other dog we had would be waiting at the other end.
We still lost a few birds a year, not as many as most would think though, to hawks, and eagles more than anything, but as you might imagine, most of those land based varmints learned to swing wide of our ranch house, or they died. Predators have territories, and dogs are predators. They owned the territory near our house, and every wild animal around, even the mountain lions, and bob cats, skunk and badgers, all knew it. We always had enough broodies and chicks in the Spring to cover the birds we did lose, and plenty left for our freezer and friends too. But without those dogs, our shotguns and rifles, and somebody around almost always, I doubt our birds would of lasted a month. I would say there is no fence short of a fortified fully enclosed run, auto door, auto feed, etc that would work in your absence. I think you may be better off feeding wild turkeys (or starting your own semi - wild bunch), and buying breakfast eggs at a store IMHO. i would be concerned even if they were in such a safe run when nobody was there, and if you are going to be there a few days every week, I'd save the free ranging for then, and I'd still have a good dog to keep an eye on things. A dog that came and went when I did -- no dog should ever live waiting to see you a few times a week, no fowl should either IMHO.
I have no doubt that one of the wisest and truest sayings that I ever heard went something like this; "Of all the ideas and principals that all gardeners have ever thought up, there is still nothing, and never will there ever be, anything better for a garden, than a gardener's shadow". It also applies to farms, ranches, and pets too.
Even with all the fancy doo-dads things still are going to happen, count on it. Breakers pop, GFIs need reset, fencers stop working, wells stop working, solar panels get knocked over, a chicken gets it's leg or head stuck, a pipe breaks, a door gets jammed, somebody got cut and is bleeding, a rooster lost an eye, that hen looks to be sick, a stray bull knocks the fence down, a hen goes egg bound, a tree falls the worst way it could have, etc. etc, etc. There are too many gadgets that all, sooner or later, always fail. And too many natural things that will inevitably come around. Just yesterday I had a hen that must have been spooked and ran herself into a dormant stickery rose bush and was stuck fast in a natural version of Velcro, lol. Gloves and pruning sheers, and I got her right out. I don't know how long she was stuck, I got off at 5:00 and found her, just guessing but I'd say around Noon, or longer, I thought she was going to drink all the water in the font, she went straight to it when free. She was thirsty, but fine. it wasn't hot out, or even that may have killed her, 24 or 48 hours would have for sure. Most are easy fixes. Hundreds of things that usually work adds up to too often something that didn't. None are something you want to find out about 3, 4, or 5 days too late. A rancher's work time is about 90% spent on fixing these issues as they come up daily, and rearranging priorities, than is spent herding and feeding livestock, there are just so many things to fix always, so many things that usually work but the few that aren't working still makes an ongoing long list that never ends as new issues come along. Maybe even there is a neighbor willing to swap chores for eggs, but me, I wouldn't even consider raising any domestic animal without somebody's eyes on them at least once daily. There is nothing wrong with not having the time to make the commitment you must have to raise animals, as long as you recognize it, and admit it, and have fun doing something else.
