Newbie with lots of questions, help

[glwchickens]

My wife and I have 9 Golden Laced Wyandotte chickens, 8 hens, 1 nasty rooster.
We have 4 hens missing feathers on their back, I guess from the rooster being
so aggressive, this rooster likes to attack when your off guard, so I guess
I will have to take care of him and soon, maybe the hens feather will grow back.

We keep the chickens in a fenced area but I am thinking about letting them free
range, we have 5 acres, mostly wooded with a lot of bushes and a field of tall
grass.

Has anyone here ever free ranged wyandotte chickens?
If so, do they normally stay close to the coop area?
Does the rooster normally take the lead of the flock when the flock is foraging?
We tried free ranging last year, our chickens wondered away from the coop area
3 houses down which is about 100 yards away....

Any suggestions??

Thank you for your time and help,
Darle

 

[lazy gardener]

How long have you had this flock? You may need to do a supervised free range with them... allow them out only when you can supervise. Keep them a bit on the hungry side, and if they wander beyond the boundaries you set for them, call them back with a shaker can full of dry scratch. Every time they wander to the edge of your range, reward them for coming back with a treat.

 

[glwchickens]

Our chickens will be a year old on June 11, we got when they were a day old on June 12,
sounds like a good ideal, keep them a little hungry and call them back offering some scratch.
I was thinking about letting them out to free range for 2 hours each evening for starters,
maybe they won't venture to far in a 2 hour time period, just have to be at the ready with
the scratch.

Thank you I will give that a try.