Keeping chickens without a run... permanent free-ranging?

[binky]

We have 23 hens with a henhouse and a pen. Whenever we're home, we keep the pen open so they can roam. They come running whenever we step out of our house, and we can get them back into their house easily with a thin trail of scratch.

We have 51 more 5-week-old pullets, and are wondering what our new system will be.

The only problem we have so far is that by the end of the day, the hens wander over to the lawn of the State Troopers' Barracks next door!! We will need to put up a lot of fencing soon so we won't have to spend our days retrieving the hens.

 

[7L Farm]

Hi!! Cari I live on a farm & the coop I have was my grandfathers care taker. I had to move it because where it was had turned into woods. I noticed upon moving this coop there was no run just a coop. I'm sure back in those days around the 50's most farmers free ranged everyday. Which I do as well but I do have a run hardly ever used only used for bad weather days. I think back in the day the coop was used mainly for a place to go collect eggs & keep the chickens safe at night. My neighbor is around 87 & had chickens way back when & he practiced permanent free range. He told me his biggest problem was predators it wasn't the infamous coon it was owls. Back in the day chickens were strictly livestock sure they still hated to loose any because they needed the eggs. Guess its still the same today. Progress always strikes & now you see mega coops that look like houses & every fancy gadget known to man. But there your chickens & you can raise them anyway your heart desires. Later 7L

 

[Marion565]

I freerange my chickens all day long, my coop is a "sleeping and laying" coop. It seems to work for me. I have an automatice door opener on the coop that opens at 6:30am and closes around 9:30 pm. Everybody gets out at 6:30 and spends the day freeranging. Sometimes I have a problem with them laying somewhere in the yard, but generally that means that there is something on the coop they don't like (snake) when that happens they also roost in the yard, in one of the big bushes next to the house. So that tells me that there is something wrong and I can go take care of it.

I got chickens for the eggs because I did not want to support the egg industry anymore, I do not agree with the way these poor chickens have to live. I think my chickens are happy and healthy and as a bonus I have not had a grasshopper problem since I started with chickens.

People have been freeranging their chickens forever, yes you might loose one here or there but I have seen people on BYC who lost chickens when they did have an enclosed run.
IMHO freeranging is the way to go.

 

[Tripp16]

<3ChickenForever :

It's better to have a coop so you can keep count of all of them. I let them out everyday to let them get their excrise and pick at the grass. Then they all go back in the coop for the night. It keeps them safe from the predators.

X2 Just to be safe!

 

[Pele]

I think this is a really interesting topic. I really wish that I lived in an area where free-ranging was workable, but I happen to live within a few miles of one of America's biggest Birds of Prey rehabilitation facilities. The raptors are as thick as theives here, though fortunately much more pretty

.

I think what you are proposing is entirely doable depending on how your predator population is, and how much cover your property has for the chickens. Also, you'd definitely want to pick a quicker and more alert bird than say, a Sex-Link.

I did want to ask if you meant that you were thinking of skipping even closing up the coop at night. I personally don't recommend that approach, no matter where you live. A good number of chicken predators are most active at night, and unless you're trying to set up a free buffet for them, it doesn't make sense to leave your chickens unguarded at night. It wouldn't matter how conditioned your chickens are to free-ranging, they're helpless at night. If you ever want to see just how helpless, go to your coop well after dark and pick them up. They won't even so much as squirm, just sit there in your hands like a zombie.

Hope that helps clarify your question, you've had good input so far!

 

[calista]

We always had at least 50 chickens running around the yard on the 100-acre farm where I grew up in the Sixties, and they stayed pretty close to the rickety, drafty old barn that was always in imminent danger of collapsing and which my Dad never got around to fixing up. Roosts were branches set up in one corner, and nests were cardboard boxes filled with hay along one side. The chickens set their own schedule for getting up, free-ranging, and going to bed with absolutely NO protection from predators, and we gathered the eggs once a day at the same time we threw a can of scratch on the ground in front of the barn.

Yes, we had losses but they were actually quite small over the years as each hatchery order or broody hen family matured and joined the free-ranging flock. The birds were fat, sassy, healthy, and quick to take advantage of cover around the yard when the roosters trilled their warning cries. So I agree that there was a Darwinian element to "survival of the fittest" in the flock.

We also noticed that we NEVER lost any banties of any breed. They were agile flyers and skittish by nature, so their instincts served them well.