Ready to give up on my chooks, help please.

[CoconutCoffee]

Purely by accident of placement, my chicken yard has a couple of sage brushes and a skunk sumac in it. The biggest sage and the sumac are in the same general location. That’s where my guys hang out. It’s the first place they run to if the emergency hawk sighting call goes out.

I’m hoping next year to have my fence guy out to put another fence outside the one I put in. That will nearly double their yard space and pick up the juniper with a roughly six foot spread in their area. I can’t wait to see what they make of that giant shrub.

All that said, no matter how different the environment is from their ancestral jungles, they don’t change their preferences much.

How big is their area now? I'm finishing up a 48x48 run hopefully tomorrow and am looking for any plants that can withstand chickens.

 

[MTKitty]

... Rule of thumb when starting new plants in the run, always cloche it for a year or so to let it get fully established.

Chickens will rip up the roots looking for bugs otherwise. Loose soil seems to attract them like flies.

I forgot that. Yes, I have ... had some struggling bare root stock in at the beginning of spring. I’m not sure the few who survived the dry summer will have survived the chickens, once they were introduced. I chalked it up to a learning experience and have plans to protect any new stuff I put in.

 

[MTKitty]

How big is their area now? I'm finishing up a 48x48 run hopefully tomorrow and am looking for any plants that can withstand chickens.

They’re in an area just shy of 800 sq ft, once the coop is accounted for. When I get the expansion done, I expect it to be around 1,100 sq ft.

Other than the bare root stuff I added this spring, the sage and sumac are indigenous to my area and were here when I started fencing last year. The ones in the pen area escaped the brush hog used by my fence guy to clear the fence line.

I have no idea how old those or the juniper might be. At least six years old, as they were here when I bought the land.

 

[3KillerBs]

I'm not sure what you don't get about them only going in here to sleep

This is only where they sleep they free range

From an article I'm writing:​

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But I free range/have a huge run and my chickens only use the coop to sleep and lay eggs! Why do I need all that space inside?​

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You might not. As I've said, these are guidelines, not hard-and-fast rules.​

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If you never close the pop door so that your coop and run function together as a fully integrated system that is the equivalent of a huge, open-air coop, then your flock might be just fine for years, even decades.​

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If you are always out there to open the pop door at the crack of dawn or you have an ultra-reliable automatic door so that your chickens never lack access to their free range territory during the daylight hours, then your flock might be just fine for years, even decades.​

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If you live in a mild climate where chickens can always go out into their run/range and are never kept in by snow or storms, then your flock might be just fine for decades. People who keep chickens in places with tropical and subtropical climates do successfully go without a coop at all, just offering a covered roost and some nestboxes.​

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But when something happens ...​

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When a determined predator moves in and breaks through the fencing so that you have to confine the flock to the coop itself so that you can fix the run,​

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When an extreme weather event prevents your chickens from leaving shelter for days,​

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When an emergency calls you out of town and you can't find someone willing to be there at the crack of dawn to open the pop door,​

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Then you could have a mess on your hands.​

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Which brings us back to the issue of flexibility and options. Any time you push a system hard against it's limits you have to count on everything remaining stable -- exactly as it is without any changes. How well that's likely to work depends on your specific circumstances. You may never encounter an unfortunate circumstance -- some people DO hit the lottery, after all.​

Unfortunately, you ARE having problems and they are problems typically seen due to inadequate housing -- very often from new chicken keepers who have been fooled by the manufacturers' misleading claims.

No one is trying to bully you. We are attempting to give you information and advice, which you asked for but seem determined to reject.

We mean you and your chickens well, not ill. We want to help you succeed.

 

[K0k0shka]

It’s very hard to help someone when they don’t seem to want the help they asked for. And not only do they not want it, but they are acting rude, biting the hand reaching out to help. Maybe OP needs to get off the internet and go figure out their problems on their own.