Keeping Chickens Free Range

[lazy gardener]

You get an A+ for ingenuity.

 

[SmColorInDaPan]

Guess What I found under the front porch?!! 1 Day over 12 weeks, kid you not. What it means to leave them loose, imho.
Congrats on your Broody, Ralph! Retrieved my hen's egg y-day so NOW, I know what dog was gobbling up, shortly thereafter! Muzzle, here we come!

 

[vpatt]

I got a new young rooster and a black star pullet today. CANNOT remember what the roo is, but i thought since Honeycutt is crippled (sort of) that he could use some back up. So now i have four who will be free rangers and four in the pen. I will get another pullet next time. Mr. Darling's little frizzled wife is settled on her eggs......fingers crossed for chicks.

 

[mikey1957]

I started free-ranging my first group of chickens when they were older. Almost a year old. Now new additions can be started much earlier as they learn from the older ones. The older ones still have to be called to the coop and expect meal worms when they get there, My 3 Leghorns now put themselves up and they are only 3 months old and don't even expect the meal worms. All I have to do is close the door to the run as they are already roosting when I round up the older ones. I currently have 6 3 week old chicks that are currently confined to a large dog crate in the coop. Today was their first day out of the house. I will do them like I did the other 3 and leave them in the crate for about 3 days then open the door to the crate but close off the coop for a few days while the bigger chickens are free ranging for a while then open the coop to the run....still closed off. The new ones will learn like the Leghorns did to go to the dog crate if they get bullied (I hope). The big chickens don't like to go through the smaller door on the crate. Then I will watch to see how good they are at staying close by for a while. The Leghorns were naturally cautious when outside free ranging and run very fast. LOL. My worry now is that the Leghorns won't use the nesting boxes since they have free ranged most of their lives.

 

[SmColorInDaPan]

Found all pullets, 12 weeks old, near metal 100 gallon trough they were raised in. They were scared off, but I did put in some straw, hopeful, they will lay there. Either me

or the Dogs

have found eggs laid, around the yard. Like they needed to, didn't want to bother find a 'place', LOL. Like potty training?

'But, I HAD TO!'

FL, I send my concern, Love, hugs, best. Hate is like Toadstools; It ONLY grows in s**t & can be disguised as something worth having.

 

[Victoria-nola]

Hey folks,
I haven't been on this thread too much but I need to tell you what just happened:
Quote from myself on another thread:
Just had some excitement here, I'm still fighting back down the adrenaline. Today, as I reported earlier (see above) was Day 2 of 4-week-olds free-ranging inside our curtilage fence. Late in the afternoon, a rainstorm was kicking up and husb and I were hanging around the yard to ensure the littles got inside before the rain hit. Suddenly husb noticed a large snake had slithered in from our 13-acre field and was in the vegetable garden which is still mostly just unplanted rows (long story about late start, planting everything this week at moontime), so it was very visible. He went and fetched the snake-identification guide we have, and it was pretty easy to determine it was a rat snake, a very large (at least 42") one, and when it froze in response to our intrusion, its body was laying at a direct diagonal heading toward the barn and the coop. I know they do good work, but I also know that it was attracted to the newly exposed biomass (i.e. chicks) and even if we ran it off this time, it would be back very quickly. So I decided that it had to be dispatched, and so it was.

Husb was very reluctant to kill it, and, I was too. But, I really felt like it it was a threat to our (chicks) well-being and simply could not be tolerated. Something else to note: The adult chickens caught onto this and solemnly gathered, sniffing at the place where he'd dropped the body for a few minutes, and watched while husb buried the snake out in the field.

But so, I am left with the question, what can we do to protect against snake intrusions? What do you free-rangers do? I guess first is we need to consider bush-hogging the field again very soon.

As a recap: I've had chickens about 4 years, I only ever had chicks indoors in a brooder, and the second batch of chicks wasn't integrated with the first until they were the same size. This time, hatched our own eggs and used Mama-Heating-Pad with outdoor brooder, integration with Bigs going great. Never have had little chicks on the ground before. And, we don't have a locked-down chicken run, only the coop locks down. No outdoor dog yet.

Thanks for any thoughts.

 

[OrganicFarmWife]

Hey folks,
I haven't been on this thread too much but I need to tell you what just happened:

Well just to report further, as of yesterday the chicks broke out of the semi-protected yard and are now free-ranging at just under 4 weeks old.  The rooster is able to gather them up periodically and they are pretty much staying in the shade and overhangs just like the adults do.  They are following the adults around while also finding their own spaces.

They were able to fly up onto the fence, above where we'd laid on the 1" chicken wire, and over. So then we opened the portal so that the adults could free-range again too.  Everyone seems very happy. We check on them every hour or so.

Just had some excitement here, I'm still fighting back down the adrenaline. Today, as I reported earlier (see above) was Day 2 of 4-week-olds free-ranging inside our curtilage fence. Late in the afternoon, a rainstorm was kicking up and husb and I were hanging around the yard to ensure the littles got inside before the rain hit. Suddenly husb noticed a large snake had slithered in from our 13-acre field and was in the vegetable garden which is still mostly just unplanted rows (long story about late start, planting everything this week at moontime), so it was very visible. He went and fetched the snake-identification guide we have, and it was pretty easy to determine it was a rat snake, a very large (at least 42") one, and when it froze in response to our intrusion, its body was laying at a direct diagonal heading toward the barn and the coop. I know they do good work, but I also know that it was attracted to the newly exposed biomass (i.e. chicks) and even if we ran it off this time, it would be back very quickly.  So I decided that it had to be dispatched, and so it was. 

Husb was very reluctant to kill it, and, I was too.  But, I really felt like it it was a threat to our (chicks) well-being and simply could not be tolerated. Something else to note: The adult chickens caught onto this and solemnly gathered, sniffing at the place where he'd dropped the body for a few minutes, and watched while husb buried the snake out in the field.

But so, I am left with the question, what can we do to protect against snake intrusions?  What do you free-rangers do?  I guess first is we need to consider bush-hogging the field again very soon.

As a recap:  I've had chickens about 4 years, I only ever had chicks indoors in a brooder, and the second batch of chicks wasn't integrated with the first until they were the same size.  This time, hatched our own eggs and used Mama-Heating-Pad with outdoor brooder, integration with Bigs going great. Never have had little chicks on the ground before. And, we don't have a locked-down chicken run, only the coop locks down. No outdoor dog yet.

Thanks for any thoughts.

Huh so would the rat snake kill the chicks or would the adult chickens kill the snake? I do not have snake problems here. The worst we have is Gardeners and Bull snakes, and even they are scarce in the yard, dogs, cats, chickens, plenty of things to eat snakes....

 

[Victoria-nola]

Huh so would the rat snake kill the chicks or would the adult chickens kill the snake? I do not have snake problems here. The worst we have is Gardeners and Bull snakes, and even they are scarce in the yard, dogs, cats, chickens, plenty of things to eat snakes....

Rat snakes eat rats and other rodents so they are basically good for us, but also eggs and birds. It was heading to the coop for sure. I think it was way too big for a chicken to kill, but my 2 pet pigs might have. In any case, unwilling to take the chance on losing the any of the chicks. And they can scale straight up a brick wall, so I was worrying because we don't have the hardware cloth ceiling inside the coop yet and the snake could enter the coop at the very top (15-ft or higher ceiling, but still). Believe me, now I'm VERY motivated to get that ceiling done.

 

[Peeps61]

Yes, those rat snakes are a mixed blessing for sure! I haven't had too many problems with them in the coop because I live on 10 acres and they have plenty of field mice and other rodents to eat. However, I did lose a white leghorn this past week - the first one in over a year! So, I figure I was about due to lose one. There is a stray cat that sits in our barn when we leave it open - but I'm not too sure that he was the culprit. It almost looked like a hawk or other raptor strike to me. My young birds aren't allowed out to range until they are big enough to get away from the big girls. Right now we are in the "see but don't touch" state as they are in their own coop, but I allow the big girls out to range 4 out of 7 days. They visit through the wire.

If I find a rat snake near or in my coop, I kill it as it's gotten a taste for eggs, apparently, and I don't want to lose eggs or chicks to a predator that has plenty of other stuff around to eat!

 

[JanetMarie]

Hey folks,
I haven't been on this thread too much but I need to tell you what just happened:

Just had some excitement here, I'm still fighting back down the adrenaline. Today, as I reported earlier (see above) was Day 2 of 4-week-olds free-ranging inside our curtilage fence. Late in the afternoon, a rainstorm was kicking up and husb and I were hanging around the yard to ensure the littles got inside before the rain hit. Suddenly husb noticed a large snake had slithered in from our 13-acre field and was in the vegetable garden which is still mostly just unplanted rows (long story about late start, planting everything this week at moontime), so it was very visible. He went and fetched the snake-identification guide we have, and it was pretty easy to determine it was a rat snake, a very large (at least 42") one, and when it froze in response to our intrusion, its body was laying at a direct diagonal heading toward the barn and the coop. I know they do good work, but I also know that it was attracted to the newly exposed biomass (i.e. chicks) and even if we ran it off this time, it would be back very quickly. So I decided that it had to be dispatched, and so it was.

Husb was very reluctant to kill it, and, I was too. But, I really felt like it it was a threat to our (chicks) well-being and simply could not be tolerated. Something else to note: The adult chickens caught onto this and solemnly gathered, sniffing at the place where he'd dropped the body for a few minutes, and watched while husb buried the snake out in the field.

But so, I am left with the question, what can we do to protect against snake intrusions? What do you free-rangers do? I guess first is we need to consider bush-hogging the field again very soon.

As a recap: I've had chickens about 4 years, I only ever had chicks indoors in a brooder, and the second batch of chicks wasn't integrated with the first until they were the same size. This time, hatched our own eggs and used Mama-Heating-Pad with outdoor brooder, integration with Bigs going great. Never have had little chicks on the ground before. And, we don't have a locked-down chicken run, only the coop locks down. No outdoor dog yet.

Thanks for any thoughts.

I would gladly trade with you all of your rat snakes for a fox.