Natural range of a free range chicken

[Organics North]

Live in a tent, a trailer, a small house... IMO always buy as much land as you can possibly afford.. Mc Mansions with gold plated toilets do not feed the family, go down in vaule and so on.. Land well there is only so much of it.. Grab as much as you can!... We have a crummy little house and 70 spectacular acers....

We are 100% ready to rock and roll...

Olive Hill, a question for you..

We feed supplemental grain from a local feed mill, live in a four season location and free range without fences. FWIW, our chickens tend to keep a 600-700 foot radius from their coop and all go in at night on their own.

Your birds stay within 700 feet interesting, mine regularly go twice as far..(1500 feet)
Are you open or wooded..????
It seems in open areas the birds are more cautious and do not go as far, but when they have cover the go further..
ON​

 

[Olive Hill]

Quote:
Your birds stay within 700 feet interesting, mine regularly go twice as far..(1500 feet)
Are you open or wooded..????
It seems in open areas the birds are more cautious and do not go as far, but when they have cover the go further..
ON

Actually I find the contrary to be true here. We have both wooded and open areas, they prefer to range in the open/low garden/brush and bush areas and do not range into the wooded areas, staying only on the outskirts of them instead.

Not sure if it's a misunderstanding or not but keep in mind that figure is a radius, I know before you said yours tend to range a 500 meter square if your coop is in the center of that square ours are ranging a pretty similar area.

That said, knowing what I do of the northern michigan wilderness it would not surprise me -- if the northern wisconsin wilderness is the same or similar -- that yours range further. Our woods in the middle part of the lower peninsula of Michigan are much different than the woods in the north and our forage tends to thicker, richer. They would have to go further to find the same forage opportunities up north.

 

[Organics North]

Interesting.. Yes we are like the the western UP. Big mature trees with the forest floor completely open with no underbrush. Only ferns in some areas. Thin sandy rocky soil. The birds primary forage through decaying wood and leaf litter.
I think they range about the same as yours according to your description. We are on an isthmus between two lakes, and have a heavy eagle and osprey population.. I think this is why our birds prefer cover of the woods. (Of course the flock does come to the house and help mow our lawn..

ON

 

[70monte]

When I was a teenager we let our chickens free range and they would go quite a ways from their coop during the day. We always lived at the edge of the woods and the chickens had no problems going pretty far into the woods to forage. We lived at three different houses with the same chickens over a seven year period and they always ranged quite a ways. They did come back to the coop for the night and only a few times did we have some chickens roost in the trees.

Wayne

 

[eggbuster]

The distance a chicken free ranges over is determined by quality of forage, predator experiences i.e.. need for cover, and breed. It would be helpful if everyone named their breeds when describing their free rangers. Then we can see a more concise pattern develop. A buckeye for instance, really motors and does not like to stay in one place too long, almost claustrophobic, they fly out of the coop in the morning. Talk about being sandblasted by chickens. If they survive enough attacks, they still motor but more wisely. Experience is key and they will teach the young ones so the survival rate goes up over generations. Chickens are very monkey see, monkey do. It starts resembling gorilla warfare as they dart from place to place never staying long. A chantecler never goes far from the coop even with lots of cover around and they line up in pecking order and sedately exit the coop.

I also, believe in buying land before house. Even in town, buy the bigger lot and take the shack; you can feed your family quite well if you give up the lawn.