Need some opinions on free-ranging please!

[georgialee]

I haven't put the fence up yet so it could even be 5 live wires (or 5 wires only 3 live). The area will be approx. 275'x275' with a 32x26 barn and the chicken coop... so plenty of room to 'hide' in the barn or in the surrounding brush, etc. We have a large open farm with cattle on one side of our property, two neighbors with horses and then a heavily wooded ridge behind us. All of our neighbors have dogs (I've never seen any of the dogs loose). Getting a farm dog isn't really an option fo us right now. I was assuming the chickens would go underneath the fence, but I could put a wire at 6-8" to discourage it. If I don't free range them they'll be in a 10x30 or 40 kennel (20 chickens).

eta: I will close up the coop at night.

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
'Bout the best you can say is: maybe.

There are many variables when you bring a feathered buffet to a place where none existed before. I am not a fan of turning them loose to be free, anyway - I prefer to see them controlled for their benefit and yours.

It sounds like you are setting up a nice paddock environment. That should do well and give you time to learn what works. Do place the lower live wires on the outside of the fence, as you suggest.
I do suspect that, at some time in the near future, you will find out the hard way. Not because you are doing something wrong, but because it happens all the time.

I recommend that you raise a lot of them.

 

[aestus_lux]

My chickens have always been free ranged, when I was younger I worked on a farm where we raised 10's of thousands of chicks every year for battery houses, and I just can't stand cooping them up all the time. I always keep my home-grown roosters, and they watch out for the hens. For the first time in 15 years, a hawk did get a very younf BR pullet I had just purchased, and its larger friends disapeared at the same time( i think they schitzed and ran off to one of the neighboring barns or woods. We only have an acre, but our's is surrounded by fields on 3 sides, and a rd on the fourth, which they LOVE to cross. Over the years cars have been our biggest enemy, except of the white dog masacre of 99.

 

[Davaroo]

Quote:
Like I said, it happens. Maybe not today, possibly tomorrow - but it is par for the course with free ranging chickens. You have to expect to lose a few, if you are going to turn them loose. Compensation, I guess, for them living the "free" life.

 

[cybercat]

Size matter the the bigger and heavier a chicken the less likly a hawk will go after it. Usually over 7lbs they will leave alone.

What compenstates any loses is the way the egg and chickens taste from free ranging. You just can not match it with feeding them.

 

[Bagdad Chicken Mom]

I am free ranging nine roosters. I have four buff orpingtons, four rhode island reds and one light brahamas. They are enclosed in a fenced off area of our property among the horses and goats. They sure do a great job scratching the piles of manure up. These roos are all still young and were hand raised by my friend who was told she had all those hens. I have two older Araucanas who are buddies but one fights and chases the other around all the time. I do a head count on all my roosters & hens daily. I also have one bantam roo who is the king in the chicken coop with 10 beautiful Americana hens and two peafowls! I just love my roos and hens!