How to free range without fences or electrical wire UPDATED WITH PICS

[laughaha]

Mine are with the chickens and sleep in the coop on a bed of hay in a corner. Easy Peasy. I am having a problem with one of the new ones being an egg eater (I had wondered why I had gotten the 4 super healthy sub adult geese for $30) but am working on that problem. Everyone eats the same things- layer pellets, BOSS (black oil sunflower seed), alfalfa pellets (rabbit food), scraps/treats, and all the grass/weeds they want.

pics of the brat pack

you may have bantams- ee's come in bantam sized- so I'm not sure. Some look like they may be white leghorns (these are faster than streaked lightening). If these are the EE's, then they may be mixed with white leghorn. I am not in love with white leghorns (all mine are nervous ninnies) but I will always have some cuz they are such good layers and are very fast and are great at keeping an eye out for predators- and in my flock if one starts racing for cover, they all will.

 

[pattgal]

Quote:
one is a leghorn, she came mixed with my meatballs (cornish X), the others i guess anything is possible. Although my leghorn is the hardest to catch. I find it easier if I just make her run a couple of laps first to tire her out and then catch her. She isn't any bigger than the others but she is a head longer. will they fill out more at a year old?
I wish I had more space

I just measured the coop because I always remember it to be bigger than what it is. It is roughly 6X10. Not very big to share with geese over the winter

 

[sriston]

We use deer netting to make "boundaries" for our chickens. We live in a small town, and we have about 1 acre of land. Our chickens free range, and once they discovered our large garden they were in heaven. We have chain-link fencing around our main yard. which is where they live and it hasn't had any grass since we have had chickens. There is plenty of good "pasture" way out back in the big yard, which is also where the garden is.

We could not afford, nor did we want to, install any other fencing. We did want a way to keep the chickens in certain areas, and especially out of the gardens unless they were invited into them.

We purchased deer netting from Tractor Supply Co. for about $20.00. It is about 5' tall and 100' in length. Very flexible. We simply cut branches to serve as the "posts" for the netting. We ran it from the back gate and formed a triangle shaped grazing area for them. We just open our back gate and let them out and they are in the netted area. Because the deer netting is very soft and flexible, we step over it easily to go to other parts of the yard.

The deer netting will not keep predators out because it is not sturdy enough (it would most likely keep cats out but I imagine a determined dog would get in), but it keeps the chickens in which was our goal. The netting is black and is very difficult to see, so we tied orange flags at intervals along the top of it so we (and anyone else) could easily see where it was.

Deer netting was a cheap and easy solution for us, and we can easily move the netting around. Not a bad solution for $20.00.

 

[pattgal]

another update...
I sprayed the cat with my 100ft hose twice on two different occasions and so far so good. haven't seen him since

ive been letting the girls out as early as 1pm and haven't had to worry about staying outside
last night i heard a new sound. so i kept checking outside. nothing seemed odd, then i heard it again and again. i checked and checked...then finally i noticed one of them was missing but no biggie. its like dogdollar's rule of one (I call it the rule of minus one), only im usually missing three. I think its because i have a silkie rooster leading them off to a second location. anyway we found an egg not long after we did our routine head count after sunset

So i guess i will be keeping them indoors for a bit so they will use the box. (I found one broke under the roost this morning)

 

[Lynette]

I let mine free range yesterday for the first time from 1 pm til it was time for them to go to bed. I was sooo nervous!! But they all did good and they made it through the day. With the sun out yesterday, they stayed under my pine trees and big apple tree so they couldn't really be seen by hawks or anything else. I saw nothing that would harm them and I let my dogs out to help watch them too. I am home all day and had the windows open so I could hear them and I would go out and check on them. Especially if I couldn't see them. My yard isn't fenced in either, but I know it makes them happy to get out. Plus I do like seeing them run around the yard looking for good things to eat.

 

[grandfatherjwv]

Yes, once chickens know where their bed down place is, it is hard to get them to change. I get them to stay close to home with a deer feeder with an added repeating timer and electric eye for day time only use. A couple seconds on then off for an hour. They stay close in order to get their share of feed. See my homepage for pictures.

 

[Ironmaiden]

I let mine free range, and then two never came back. I have 11 acres, partially wooded, partially chain link fenced. I then changed to letting them out only when I came home from work. I went in the house for 30 minutes to check dinner, came back out and a dog had killed 4, one my favorite. Now they are on lockdown in their run (50x20)and in the barn until I can buy more fence. Sad, sad, sad.

 

[Ironmaiden]

Oh, I should say that I DO let them out for an hour to two hours each evening. I stand over them with a .22 rifle.

 

[WhetzelMomma]

Quote:
That's the BEAUTY of it! They don't need to be trained!!
They will naturally stay close to where the good food is. I regularly come out with kitchen scraps, and feed them every morning in the same place.
None of my chickens roam much farther than 200 yards. There is brush between the main road and them, and they don't seem interested in going there. We live on 7+ acres, and about 1/2 of that is cleared area around the house.
You said you've had your flock since Spring. If that's the case, and they've been housed in the same area this whole time, you've given them plenty of time to know where their roost is. They will come home to it.
You will need to protect your garden. We fenced ours in, so the chickens can run free.
When you free range, you run a higher risk of predators, and there are a lot of people who simply don't live where they can have peace of mind about that. I don't happen to live in that kind of area. I've lost one chicken to predators, and that was my fault for forgetting to lock up earlier.