Free Range or Not? What Does Everyone Prefer?

[canadianchick86]

Interesting comments...I am currently planning my coop/run design so this is very helpful. I do have a question though...how are the chickens with gardens? Will they just pick off bugs or do they wipe out the whole garden?

 

[Beekissed]

Interesting comments...I am currently planning my coop/run design so this is very helpful. I do have a question though...how are the chickens with gardens? Will they just pick off bugs or do they wipe out the whole garden?

Both...they pick off bugs, eat the veggies and scratch up the soils at the roots of the plants~can completely uproot and kill some things. Chickens and gardens do not mix. Ducks and gardens, now that's a match.

 

[bluebirdnanny]

Bee my girls loved patrolling the rows of my garden. They seemed to know what I planted FOR them and left the other things alone! Kale produced enough for them AND me. Let them have have the leaf lettuce and laid cheesecloth over the head ones. Tomatoes I planted in the garden they left alone and ate the ones I threw next to the coop. Also planted a few things IN the grass near the coop. They ate that and left the garden planted ones to me. Maybe it is what I planted but they were fine. But I did lay a tunnel over the rows of seedlings until larger. Just so they got a start then let girls browse for bugs once they were bigger. My freezer is still full. Maybe I am tempting fate but I love my girls patrolling in the garden.

And I do 100% free range when I am home. Delayed free range if I will be gone in morning. My view: if they can't figure out to take cover then they aren't worth having. I want smart chickens. Now having said that I will be doing tractor range breeding pens when I get my heritage RIRs from Fred.

 

[ChickCrazed]

If I had an expensive breeding program I would not free range, but my flock are mostly pets and I would rather they enjoy being chickens, even if their lives end up being a bit shorter because of it. A part of me also likes the fact that nature MAY help me out with some of my geriatric hens so I can keep introducing younger hens. I sure don't have the heart to send them to their maker. If they can enjoy their lives by free ranging, and it helps me by naturally weeding out a hen here or there, it seems like a great plan. However if I had a recurring predator problem I might have to reconsider and take preventative action against that.

 

[AmericanMom]

My chickens free range on half of our property, it is fenced on all sides but there is a run attached to their coop in case we need to keep them confined for a short time. I usually use it only with new layers so they get used to where they need to lay. Chickens are great for many things, bug control being at the top of the list

 

[AmericanMom]

Both...they pick off bugs, eat the veggies and scratch up the soils at the roots of the plants~can completely uproot and kill some things. Chickens and gardens do not mix. Ducks and gardens, now that's a match.

Once my garden is started the chickens are allowed to free roam it, only once have I had them totally eat a plant, I planted onions and was told once they form the buds on the top to just go through and lay them down so all the nutrients go to the onion itself...My girls decided I must have put it there for them and within an hour had wiped out the whole crop ... otherwise I have never had a problem and my garden actually does better with them then without, I never have to spray for bugs

 

[Mrs. K]

wow - my chickens see my garden as a BIG dust bowl. They just love the loose soil. I will let them till it up a bit in the spring, but when I start planting, they are fenced out. Now the one exception to that was the summer, I wound up brooding chicks. After I had my garden up, and the chicks were a week or two old, I would let them out in the garden, they had a wonderful time, and would fall asleep under the beans in the shade. So darn cute, I would just leave the box in the garden, and they would huddle up in it come near dark, and I would carry them in. But any bigger chicken can did a big hole in a short time!

 

[Beekissed]

Same here. I have grass and clover in my pathways and I mulch my rows, so all the tasty bugs are under the mulch....which is displaced all in one afternoon if I let chickens in the garden. The mulch is there for a reason~to suppress weeds~ and I just can't spend time raking the mulch back over the the base of bedded plants in a large garden every day. They can eat bugs in the pasture around the garden. I like my predatory bugs to take care of the larvae of the bad bugs but that cannot happen if the chickens eat all my beneficial bugs and leave the bad tasting potato bug larvae alone.

Nope...too much hard work and planning goes into that garden to let chickens ruin it. I've got a balance in my gardens that chickens only upset and they have three acres of meadow and surrounding wood land to forage in, so they don't need my garden for it.

 

[howsekatz8]

I would like to know, how safe are your chickens inside your fenced yard? And how high andwhattype of fence?

 

[larry529]

You should not need to worry about predators during the day time so much. If something comes out during the day time, its probably sick or something. A fence would contain the chickens to a smaller area.If a dog comes around, shoot it if it steps on your property as it will kill your birds.

As it gets dark, your birds will go back to there safe haven which is the coop. I leave my door open all day, and they go in as they please, but if they are out twords the evening and feel like sleeping on the porch instead of in there coop, I carry them and put them away, but that does not happen often as they want to go where they have feed, water, and no its safe.