Sem-wild chickens in the woods?

[Pork Pie]

Interesting thoughts and advice everyone, thanks.

"Maybe a coop with an automatic opening / closing door? "

It's a very good idea and I have thought about it, but my concern with it was that what if the door closes before all the chickens come inside run? And I can't leave it open too late as the foxes will just come in. The chickens will not be accustomed to sleeping in the trees, if they miss the door closing time, they might just sleep somewhere easy for fox to get them.

"Why you would want to set a group of domesticated food animals out in the woods to basically fend for themselves is beyond me.
What is your goal in this endeavor?"

I have kept and bred chickens for a number of years in my good sized garden, and now I may be moving house. Where I am moving too, I may not be able to chickens due to neighbours. But I don't want to give up chickens, I just want to own some, watch them, get the occasional eggs see them hatch etc. I was thinking maybe I could figure out a managmenet system in the woods even if I can't visit everyday.


"but what about owls and hawks?"

Very few hawks here, owls would be a bigger concern. No grey foxes that I know of, just the small red fox. Serioulsy we are very fortunate in the UK, we have very few predators that can take out the chicken easily.

"Needs to indicate hectarage. Also what is land use around area where this to be attempted."

My own area would be about 5 acres of woodland, but many more acres around they would freely be able to go into, we are talking many 10's of acres. In the UK it is hard to even get permission for a shed up in the woods, so it is all just wild growth of trees, bushes, floar and fauna etc with the occassional passerby on a woodland walk. It essentially has no use and by and large woods here not used for anything.

Also let me clarify, this may never be attempted by me, I am just thinking about it to see if it may be workable to some extent.

"You must have some predator management and production will not be high enough to allow both harvest and sustainability"

Predator management is my primary concern, and may very well be my only concern. I am really not bothered about how much harvest I get.

"Not trying to steal his thread but seeing as we want similar things"

Steal it as much as you like lol. The more people questioning the better idea I'll get.

"What about winter or colder months? Do you get snow?"

CTKen is right about the weather. We may get a few short days in the middle of winter below freezing (0 celcius whatever that works out to farenheight) and it is rare we will ever get to -5 celcius. Most chickens can handle -10 celcius. We hardly get any snow where I am although in other places around the UK we do get snow.

I currently have an open air coop, with one side almost fully open, but deep enough so my chickens are sheltered from drafts and wind. My chickens have no problem going thorugh winter and are as happy and healty and active in winter as summer.

"There are also eagles and hawks and martens (and its relatives). Martens, weasels and minks will climb on trees and kill hens when they are sleeping."

There are a few hawks in specfic areas around UK, but nothing to really be worrying about where I am. I have yet to come across an eagle around central England (except in the Zoo). I'm not too sure about weasels and I think minks are rare in UK.

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I think tha's all the questions answered, apologies if I missed anything.

One possible solution I have been toying with in my head is to play with the open air coop idea. I could have the coop up in the trees (a sort of chicken tree house), but I would have the open end at the bottem (the 4 sides would be boarded up). So vertically, it would need to be long enough so that no drafts would go up far enough to rustle their feathers (as their would also be ventialtion holes at the top).

I think this would stop:

*most owl problems
*all weather problems
*and if high enough all fox problems

The only thing would be training them to go up everynight and then down more or less vertically in the morning to get out of the coop. Any thoughts on this chicken tree house idea?

If you look back at the "River Cottage" series on Youtube, I recall seeing some coops around 10ft high being used, so there's no reason why not to give it some consideration. I also remember that only certain breeds were happy to be so elevated, so thats something else to consider.

As we both know, the UK has become so much more of a nanny state recently and i wonder what the RSPCA would make of such a set up? (if that bothers you at all).

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’m coming in late to the conversation but I’ll put some thoughts out there.

You might want to check on the legal issues of putting chicken out there, whether you build anything or not if you haven’t already. That may or may not bother you but at least you’d know where you stand.

It’s quite a bit different from your situation, but I grew up on a farm where the chickens fed themselves and reproduced themselves. We’d occasionally have a snow that stayed on the ground for several days, but not many. We’d toss some corn (what you call maize) to them to help them through those spells but mostly they were on their own. A farm offers a lot of potential year-around food resources, especially if there are other animals around. Many of ours slept in trees, not in the hen house, though most laid in the hen house. I can only remember two predator attacks before I left home at 18, a fox and a dog. Sometimes we had a farm dog that may have helped but most of the time we did not. I’m not going to go into why we did not have more predator attacks that would just be speculation anyway and probably not relevant to your situation. Some people get wiped out by predators almost immediately, urban or rural. Some can go a long long time between predator attacks. Many farms near us had chickens raised the same way and predator attacks were fairly rare. Predators are hard to predict.

Probably a closer match to what you are discussing was a post on here from a much respected member that lived in northern Michigan, on the peninsula. Snow pretty much lasts all winter and it gets a lot colder than you will ever see. He talked about chickens going feral and living throughout the winter in the woods with no help from them. There were some gardens around, fallow for the winter, that may have helped in their foraging. They probably ate snow for water. The point is that they survived the winter on their own in a much harsher condition temperature and snow-wise than yours will ever see. I don’t remember him mentioning if they were a specific breed or a barnyard mix.

We did have a farm pond for them to drink from, one of my chores as a boy was to cut holes in the ice when it froze over so the cows, horses, and chickens could drink. I’m not sure what the water situation is in your woodlands. But if it seldom freezes they should be able to manage.

Predators are probably your biggest risk. It sounds like you have pretty well convinced yourself there aren’t many there. Fine, that’s your business. You are aware that foxes climb? There are many critters that eat chickens but a lot more that eat eggs. For the flock to sustain itself you need a lot of chicks to hatch. Attrition on eggs and chicks may be high. That’s why prey animals normally have very high birth rates.

If I were doing this and had no real interest in collecting eggs, I don’t think I’d build anything out there. I’d let them sleep where they wished and let them hide their nests. If I were not there to manage them I’d not want to concentrate them so just one predator finding them could wipe them out. Let them disperse themselves while roosting and their nests as they will.

If I were restricted to a breed I’d probably go with game chickens. They tend to go broody a lot, which you’ll need. They are fairly small and fly really well. They are normally excellent foragers. You are not after a chicken that lays a lot of eggs or that provides a lot of meat. I think games will suit you better than other breeds. I’d also consider a barnyard mix. If you can find a farmer that raises them a lot like we did, chickens that that pretty much feed themselves and go broody a lot and raise their own replacements, you may find that they do fairly well in a purely feral situation. These barnyard mix chickens probably have a lot of game in them. From what you describe I don’t see this as a semi-wild flock. I see it as purely feral. You may see it differently. Good luck!

 

[Mrs. K]

Icelandic chickens might also be a breed. Suppose to be hardy, scavengers, and broody. May be difficult to get pure ones.

Personally, I don't think this will work. But to each his own.

Mrs K

 

[AmandaMBG]

I've seen. Videos on YouTube of a woman somewhere overseas can't remember where who's chickens all sleep in the trees And nest in bushes. They are basically semi-feral since they mostly forage. You might try to search on there.