Free Range or Not? What Does Everyone Prefer?

[chicknfun]

I would love to free range my chickens, but after my recent incident where my neighbor's dog ate my huge, beautiful BCM roo, I don't think I will ever be turning them loose from the coop and run.
I live in Florida, and we have tons of eagles and hawks, raccoons, coyotes, bobcats, etc. so I was not looking at free ranging them for the most part anyway, sadly. I do have the luxury of having use of a very large coop and run area, so I think my chickens are pretty happy.

 

[aoxa]

Those are lovely pictures! I miss my ducks foraging around.. but as you know from the duck forum, i had tragedy strike. I am surprised with all that wooded area you don't have any issues, our woods are set way back at the end of the property so my birds were just going through the main fields(always cut down) and the horses area.

No issues at all. Even forgot a basket of eggs outside overnight and they were all left untouched. This land has been in my fiance's family for years, and the most ever spotted were deer.

Thanks I lost 2 ducks recently. They fell in a fence post hole face first one after another How does that happen? It was very tragic.

 

[sussexmarans]

I prefer to let my chickens roam around the garden, I like watching them forage and they look far happier running around the garden than cooped up inside. I only have a small, young flock so its easy for me to keep them in the garden, instead of in a coop.

 

[aoxa]

I prefer to let my chickens roam around the garden, I like watching them forage and they look far happier running around the garden than cooped up inside. I only have a small, young flock so its easy for me to keep them in the garden, instead of in a coop.

Most of us here never keep our chickens cooped up in a coop. We are talking runs VS free range. You do have a coop for night time though, right?

 

[sussexmarans]

here is a photo of two of my youngest cuckoo marans free ranging

 

[sussexmarans]

yh i have a coop for night time but i don't have a run

 

[sussexmarans]

Most of us here never keep our chickens cooped up in a coop. We are talking runs VS free range. You do have a coop for night time though, right?

i have a coop but no run

 

[Egg Lover]

It's not possible for us to let the girls run loose during the daytime. Lot's of neighbors with flowers and gardens for the chickens to tear up. We do our best to let the flock out into the yard a couple times a week to let them forage in the grass. They love getting out, we're considering some fencing to keep them in our yard so they can be out more often.

 

[JodiLynn]

We freerange our 7 adult chickens and have two great roosters. We have 14 little chicks that will be added for the boys to watch out for. Right now thre are no fences but they are cooped at night. We are in the process of making more coops with runs and eventually fence in yards so we can frerange our breeders and keep the breeds seperate. We love watching ours out and about doing whats natural. They also have five guineas that adopted one of our pet hens as their mommy. They groom her and sleep between her and our rooster. They are great watch dogs because if their is something unusal on the farm they tell you about it and since they are so loud you can here them from all corners of our 15 acres!!

 

[prosnow]

I prefer free range. But my yard is fenced and most of my chickens are too big for the hawks to carry off. I enjoy watching them be chickens in the yard. they are hilarious.

Don't be lulled into a false sense of security, I have had hawks land inside my fence and try to take an adult turkey, luckily, they were unsuccessful. Hawks, especially the juvenile ones in the fall, are pretty fearless. Also, when they come after a chicken, regardless of size, most of the time they dive bomb them to stun them, and they are dead before they can recover.

I lock mine into a coop overnight. I also have runs attached to their coops that they are let out into in the mornings and stay in until about 1pm. I find they lay their eggs more in the nesting boxes and less all around the farm this way. In the afternoons, they are let out of the runs and are able to free range until they put themselves back into their coops, after which we replenish food and water for the next day, collect eggs and lock them up to start again the next day. This works very well for me and I have had minimal losses to to predators.

Having said that, I lost 2 hens to hawks last year, my next door neighbor lost 8 of his 16 Guinea Hens last year to hawks, and my across the street neighbor lost almost their entire flock to coyotes last year. Which is a reminder that unless your run is covered, any predator can get in, coyotes have no difficulty at all scaling a 6' fence. As a footnote, I also lost 2 hens when they tried to squeeze behind things while free ranging and got stuck. We searched everywhere both times and couldn't find them. Eventually, one was found behind some plywood leaned against the barn wall and one was in the wood pile...found them much, much too late... their size 22 bodies didn't fit into the size 2 space...

By the way, I have a 20 acre farm, and while free ranging, the chicken only use about 2-3 acres to wander about, although I think if they were out all day, they may wander farther.

Very interesting to read the different ways people raise their chickens! Love it!