free ranging in back yard Q?

[tkjjas]

I'm actually here on the forums to get help with this very issue.

Just to give you some actuals of our experience, we've had two hens for 16 months and just added 3 more pullets to the flock this summer. We have a 40' x 60' backyard - there is a deck, about 20' x 40' is lawn, and the remaining area is groundcover and mulch. We like to be in the backyard, too, and the kids have a sandbox, a trampoline, and a playhouse out there. While we have enjoyed the free-range chicken set-up and the eggs are quite amazing, it was a lot of work to keep the poop picked up when we had two; now that we have five, it's become a nightmare. The poop is everywhere, especially on the deck, on the mesh cover over the sandbox, and in the lawn - you know, the places we want to be!!! The kids have friends over so we clean up beforehand, but then there is plenty of poop to step in just an hour later. The deck, where we'd like to share meals with friends, is littered with poop stains that are really hard to remove. If we are out there eating, the chickens will not leave us alone, which is really scary to any child under about age 3 (except for our's that are used to them, of course.) The flies have arrived this summer and we have more flies in our house than we have ever had. Another more minor issue is the chicken-scaping - they dig surprisingly deep holes for their dirt baths wherever they jolly well please.

I guess I'm just trying to warn you in case your set-up is like our's. 5 birds + smallish yard + people also in the yard = big pain!!! I'm cruising these forums trying to get some brilliant ideas to fix our situation because it will not work the way we have it now!!!

 

[Beekissed]

You either need a lightweight chicken tractor so that you can control where they range and poop and then hose the leavings into the grass after each day...or maybe some electric poultry netting so you can choose to move them here and there. I would vote for the tractor and you can make a really cheap and neat one with pvc pipe, chicken wire and a tarp for shading. Lightweight, cheap, solves your problems.

You can even attach a nice little dusting tray to this tractor so they have something in which to dust without tearing up your yard. A little dust, DE, maybe a few wood ashes...they will be happy to use it! Hang a nipple waterer and a hanging feeder and your problems are just gone!

 

[karlamaria]

small yard lots of poo, never a smell to be found. I clean every single drop every single day all the poop my girls lay down ( well the kids do lol ) we never leave it lying around, we pick it up every evening before before lock down. I have been doing this for 17 months and each day is a new clean yard for them to range in.. here is a pick I took a few weeks ago, notice the white gate ( its actually a pen for a dog ) I use to spread it open and block them from my porch and other erea's ( especially my tomatoes. ) never had a smell, never will. my pen and coop are also cleaned out every week.

 

[mickey328]

We do the same thing...portable coop/portable run. I've noticed that the run area will get smelly by the evening of the first day in a new spot; the grass gets trampled and the area generally looks pretty run down by the 3rd day and then we move them. By the time we move them around the yard and back to a previous spot, the grass has rebounded and looks just fine. As for the poo...our 3 dogs take care of a lot of it...ick! It freaked me out at first but it doesn't hurt them, and now that they've had the chickens around for a while, they're not even all that gaga for it

At first, when we moved I would hose it all down, but the moisture intensified the smell. We're in a very arid climate here and I've found that within a day of moving the smell is pretty much gone. The poo dries and works its way into the soil. Hehe, I sometimes think I should sprinkle a little Sweet PDZ on it to help with the drying and smell, but we just put it in the coop where it is absolutely fantastic.

 

[Mattemma]

I have 7 and move them to the far back in the summer.To many flies on the poo,,and I did not like that by the house/neighbors.Cooler months I let them roam closer,but not on the drive.

 

[gg706]

I have just started letting my chickens range, it has been about 3 weeks now...We have 2 1/2 acres fenced in.....of course with only 6 chickens I do not have any smells or anything. For awhile the chickens stayed really close to their coop. Now they are coming into the yard and have found my landscaped areas...They LOVE to go to each of my landscaped areas and tear up ALL of the pine needle mulch around my trees. They actually remove all of the needles throwing them with their little chicken feet into the grassy yard. MY husband gets REALLY upset about this...so I go out each day and rake it back into place, only to have them tear it up again the next day. In reality it is probably REALLY good for the trees but astetically speaking it is a disaster! AND has caused problems with my husband and I concerning the chickens. He doesn't want me to let them out to range anymore. I really enjoy watching them range. AND now they expect to be let out each morning.....once you start it is like awakening a monster.It is REALLY hard to go back to keeping them penned full time! I don't think I can do that to them. So think about BEFORE you do it.

 

[Beekissed]

With that much space, you could just run a lightweight netting fence on push in stakes to form a paddock for your gals while they free range and they can be happy..and so can your hubby. When I free ranged at my last house, I had fencing separating my front yard from the back yard and all my landscaping was in the front.

 

[mickey328]

That's what we did when we first got ours. We had them in a rabbit hutch pending completion of the coop and we used 3/4'' metal conduit cut into about 5' lengths, sort of wove it through the fencing and pounded them into the ground far enough to be stable. About every 3 or 4 days, we'd wait till they went in the cage for the night and move the whole thing to a new spot. It gave them plenty of room to move around and kept them in just fine. Once the garden's harvested this year, we'll do something similar for them to clean, fertilize and aerate it for us. The run we made for them won't fit in that area, so we'll go back to the portable pen thing for a while.

 

[hopp2it]

I haven't been at the chicken owning deal for long but we have a penned area in our yard they can do what they want in. I try to keep them out of the section of the yard my young kids play in so they don't go stepping in chicken poop. They still fly the coop (pun intended) daily again now and forage in the "kids area" which also includes a garden of irises they tear up terribly. I wish if they really needed to fly and forage they would do it on the other side of the fence which lies 7+ acres for them to wander but they only seem to want to be where I don't want them. DH thinks it is because they are looking for us.

 

[Beekissed]

It's because they can.

I've long since stopped trying to figure out why chickens will leave a perfectly good stretch of yard to go over a fence to a yard that looks exactly like what they left.

You can help prevent it, though, by extending your fencing about 6-8 in. above any of your posts and gates or stringing wire there to that height. Generally chickens will hop up to the top of the fence then hop down on the other side. If they don't have a firm place to hop to, they might try it a few times but usually give up when hitting the unstable, wobbly portion of the extension.