I don't know how people keep poultry without free ranging them

[missnu01]

I was thinking about it today and if my chickens weren't just loose all willy nilly all over the yard it would be so much work. I wouldn't be able to keep poultry. It would be expensive to keep them fed and just too much work. I hadn't really thought about it, but it just blew my mind all the work I would have to do and food I would have to buy if ours were penned. I put a little bagged feed in the coop once a week, And that lasts them about 3 days. The other 4 they are om their own, but I get 100% fertility and amazing hatch rates. I'm just feeling lucky that I live where I live. Makes chickening so easy. All I need is a coop, some hay and the birds. If I run out of feed it isn't an emergency. We are surrounded on nearly every side by chicken food. Some of my friends have penned chickens and I'm always like why do you do this? Why do you do that? I'm too lazy for all that. So any other chicken farmers out there super glad that chickens will feed themselves?

 

[AKCharle]

I live in an area where lots of predators can get to my chickens. See that bad boy as my avatar? He lives in the back half of my property. I don't have pics of the fox, he's too sly, and the bear, he leaves his calling card now and then to let me know he's still available if I need anything eaten. The raven and eagle do fly overs to see how their chicken crop is coming along. I only wish I could free range but I can't afford it. I feed my chickies fermented feed which helps cut the cost of feed and will chicken tractor them when I'm out in the yard to stand guard.

 

[missnu01]

We have foxes and coyotes opossums skunks and raccoons. We always lose some each year, but not many. One of the neighbors had something get in their coop and eat all their birds. Once the turkey are grown I think they deter most of our predators. Also our coop is the second story of an old building on the property, so at night the chickens are way up off the ground and I think that helps us. I just know there is no way I could keep chickens if they had to be penned and depend on me for everything. So kudos in having the drive and energy and money to keep them fed and watered. Just seems like so much work. Let me see if I can get a picture of my chickens taking their sun up to sundown meal... and actually get it to upload. Lol.

Time to play spot the chicken. There's actually 17 birds in that spot. Lol. Apparently it is chicken nap time.

There you can see a few more. Best I can tell this property was made for chickend. Lol

 

[Blammmo]

My pen is almost an acre in size for a few geese and about 15ish hens, so they are basically free range but limited to a pen (I was tired of them destroying my gardens and strawberry beds) so the mega pen gives them tons of room, plenty of bugs and grass, I also no longer slip on green tootsie rolls left behind from my geese as they lounge on the sidewalks or patio. People and animals just need their own space sometimes lol!

 

[Cindy in PA]

I have mine penned. I take out scratch & water everyday & make sure they have feed & collect eggs. That takes all of 5 minutes. I clean the coop out twice a year. No big deal at all.

 

[wholehearted]

I've had penned chickens and free range chickens in different places/situations. Either way, I never thought it was that much work. I still provide feed for them whether they are free ranging or not, so it's not more or less work either way. Even if I had to spend more time on it, I'd still do it because I do enjoy the chickens as well as the benefits of having them.

 

[missnu01]

Well that doesn't sound too bad

 

[YJAcres]

We had a free-ranged flock of guineas, which turned into a problem (LONG) story, so we keep our chickens in moveable tractors. Sure, it's some work to move each tractor once a day, but if they free-ranged, we'd have to stay outside all day to watch predators. We have a little of everything in terms of predators, so we would need a dome over our property to keep them safe! I also love the ability to keep them off our deck and out of the fruit!

 

[missnu01]

All of our gardens are fenced in to keep the chickens out of the places we don't want them. I do sometimes get chickens taken by predators in the warm months so is the risk of chickens. But once we have adult turkeys the predator risk gets cut way way down or so it seems

 

[OwensChickens]

Until something eats the turkey! We have far too many predators. We lost 7 of 12 in one cougar (or bobcat, still not certain) attack.