Free Range or Not? What Does Everyone Prefer?

[dodgewoman]

Karlamaria~ How did you train them?! I'd love to do that! Such a great idea and I could keep my predators guessing.

I keep mine(until I started getting freaked out and locked them up for good right now that I've lost 2 in the past 2 weeks) locked up until 11am/noon. They seems to lay most if not all their eggs by then so they have no where else to go but the coop.

 

[bobbi-j]

hey silver fox? Y don't you try using punctuation and capitals? It is much easier to read. I am all for free ranging and have done it before with chickens.(none lost) but the guineas would run so i cant anymore.(frowny face)

Other than that ur post is perfecto!

Clucky - this is a thread on free ranging, not on proper grammar and punctuation. But as long as we're here, why don't you use whole words ("why" instead of "y", and "your" instead of "UR")? That's just as hard to read. Even more so in my opinion. Oh, and where are your capitals and punctuation? Now that we have that clear, let's return to the original program. Thank you.

 

[bobbi-j]

I have a reading and writing dyslexia, I tend to forget grammer when i read as i write.

Its not untill someone else reads it do the mistakes become aparent

Silverfox, don't worry about the mistakes. I think your posts are quite easy to read. At least you use whole words...

 

[karlamaria]

Karlamaria~ How did you train them?! I'd love to do that! Such a great idea and I could keep my predators guessing.

I keep mine(until I started getting freaked out and locked them up for good right now that I've lost 2 in the past 2 weeks) locked up until 11am/noon. They seems to lay most if not all their eggs by then so they have no where else to go but the coop.

I take the bottle, shake it and say. where's my girls where's my girls ! and shake the bottle, at first I got only 4 chickens out of 6 to go into the pen but those who did not follow soon saw there was goodies given out in the pen. they came running and then I closed the door to the pen. each time I do this they all come now, fighting to be first to go in and get dried meal worms, scratch or some other treat. LOL, I should do a video of it, maybe when I have some time this week ! I also keep the pen open so they can go directly into the coop to lay. then they come back to the yard, they love the pen, if its open so they can come and go. i leave it open so they can do as they please. I bought a white set of gates that close to make a kennel on amazon.com,( you can see it in one of my pictures ) I fence off my tomatoes and porch with it so there not going to my door and pooping on my porch, or eating my tomatoes. it works wonderful.

 

[BrendaJ]

It really depends on where you live on what predators you have to watch for. I lost 1 chicken to a random dog but other than that we have been pretty lucky. You might want to try letting your dogs out or even getting those large fake owls. Some people really like those. I had a hard time letting mine back out after the attack but bottom line they are happier when they are out. Maybe just start letting them out when your home or going to be outside with them for a while. I dont fully free range. I have a coop with a gated area around it but i also le them out to be free during the day.

 

[dodgewoman]

Ah like clicker training for dogs! I am def. going to do this!!! My son will love it and love to help. We call him the chicken whisperer around here,lol He's the only one that can catch our young roster. Thanks for the information!

 

[BrendaJ]

Very nice. I free range 8 - 10 hrs a day as well. Two of mine walking around in the strawberry & blueberry area

 

[samsr]

I would love to free range mine a lot more than I do. I have 5 acres. Two of which I live on and is on one side at a creek and to of which are on the other side of the creek. The portion on the other side of the creek is VERY heavily wooded. One cant even see into the trees. Just a lot of willows and cotton wood trees. The other acre is where the steam runs through the property. The livable two acres is elevated about 30 feet above the rest, so we get to look down on the creek and trees on the other side. Basically you dont buld anything on the other side that you dont want the creek to have when it floods. That being said. We moved here this spring and still need to do a lot of construction. When the large garden area goes in there will be more room for free ranging. Until then I am force to only have them out when I am home to watch them. There are way to many large owls, hawks, bobcats, foxes, racoons, skunks and bears here along the creek to let them range around all day. They are definately happier when out and about. They love the chard I planted for them as well as the bugs they get to chase around.

 

[outdoorsii]

We have let ours free-range over the last cpl yrs, used to everyday almost until we lost lil blackie dominique hen to a fox (I think) - that was my fault though b/c I left both gates open overnight & in the early morning hours I had noticed they run around in the pen before its even dawn...(I don'tk now how on earth they see) but they get to wandering around & got out & went out in the front yard in the grass & tahts where we found a pile of her feathers, then more piles towards our pond and then around the pond... but she wasn't that social although she might of laid an egg or 2...we still have big blackie, I think she's too old to lay eggs now. - when we got those 2, we also got 2 white leghorns who were AWESOME LAYERS, 1 still is, but WhispyTail got taken by a fox around about 3:30-4:30pm 1 late afternoon

she was my favorite (only chicken that never crapped on me!) So after loosing a couple we limited their time in the backyard - ESPECIALLY in the Spring yall....b/c those predators are wanting to feed their babies & there are also juveniles out there who are really stupid & not that skiddish of humans b/c my mom & dad were both outside & my mom saw a medium sized fox hunching like a tiger towards my group of chickens & my dad made it to the gun right before he grabbed my whitey...it was so close, I wish we woulda had that on video, if daddy hadn't of shot it, it woulda got her, b/c my mom was yelling at it & screaming at my dad to get the gun, good thing he's a good shot (most of the time), we have neighbors, but we're on 5 acres so its ok.

But yea, I'm so afraid of loosing whitey I don't let them out anymore, maybe once a week if they're lucky & I just feel like staying outside most of the time w/them...she just heads straight for my dad's flowerbed anyways, lol we usually end up scaring her out of there about 12x's a day

 

[SamLParks]

We keep ours in a coop with a large run during the day, but then in the evening we let them be free (with their wings clipped) for about 3-4 hours in the evening when im outside working my horses. This way I can see if a hawk in coming, then they get locked in at sunset. This system has worked well for us. We have had chickens escape over our 6 foot fence and we have had chickens get snatched by hawks. We try to find a happy middle between free range and protected Oh on the week ends they are out all day