Teaching older hens to free range

[MyISAbrownhens]

The main reason we haven’t been free ranging our hens is because we have a family with dogs in our neighborhood (who would definitely eat our chickens) that basically roam the neighborhood as they please, but we just found out that family is moving!
So we would love to try to teach our chickens to free range while supervised (because we still have some hawks around and I want to keep an eye on them). They will be a year old in July and I realize it’s a bit late to start teaching free ranging but I wanted to know if you guys had any tips or if I should even try supervised free ranging at all?, I just want to make sure that they all get back to the coop safely at night though because we do have woods surrounding our house and we don’t have any problem during the day but there are definitely cyotes and raccoons that come out at night. Any ideas on teaching older hens how to free range? Thanks!

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Coyote will come out during the day too.

You don't really teach chickens to free range, you open the door they go out, than you need to round them up, or teach them to come when called. If you have predators you may not want to start. Your chickens will miss it if they are denied it later on.

 

[GC-Raptor]

My hens were 13 months old when I let them free range for the first time. .

My Golden Comets took to it quickly. I let them out 2 hours before sunset. Just after sunset they came back to the coop which is inside a 500 square foot pen. They couldn't find their way into the pen. They were trying to get in near the coop. The gate was a few feet away on a different side. . You can see the coop is in the middle of the back side of the pen. I had to call/shoo them to the gate, up to 5 days for some of the girls, before they figured it out. GC

 

[aggiemae]

You don't have to teach them but you might have to call them to the co-op at dusk for a few days. Our hens free range and every once in a while one is waiting to ve let back into the yard in the morning. She have one that we take out of our apple tree and drop on the roost just about every night. She's a Wellsummer, we got her at the feed store (in 2012!). The stupidest chicken we have ever and had and hasn't ever played more than 2 eggs a week in all the years we've had her. She's to skinny for the stew pot... maybe that's why she hasn't been eaten by any of our many night time predators.

She is a very personable and pretty hen.

 

[RWise]

They will know what to do, though I have a pullet that was slow, she was used to a pan full of goodies, which I do not provide. She learned to go eat what she can find. Of course the rest of the flock was already ranging.
Getting them back in the run would be easy, just toss out some goodies and when they go in the run close the gate.