Thinking about putting my chickens out to pasture...

[Quail_Antwerp]

DH and I have been discussing this quite a bit lately. We have goats out to pasture now, well, we're hay feeding for the winter. We are seriously toying with the idea of putting up chicken wire around the areas of pasture where the chooks can squeeze through and putting the whole flock out there to be with the goats.

Since my chicken coop is built off the back side of the goat barn, it wouldn't be that difficult to revamp the coop and change where the chickens go in and out. All I would need is a small entry/exit for them with a ramp.

Anyone else here have pastured chickens?

 

[davidb]

I have mine with my goats, I just have field wire,although sometimes they do get out and come in my yard .for the most part they stay in with the goats. I have a walk made in a ceder tree and thats where they roost at night

 

[WoodlandWoman]

When we had sheep, we pastured our chickens with them. In our case, they got along well and it worked great for us. The chickens tended to stay with the sheep and we never had any hawk attacks on the chickens during those years.

I know you have to be careful to keep goats out of chicken feed. Small goats that can fit through a chicken door seem to be the biggest offenders.

Edited to add:
We had a chicken sized door connecting the chicken run and the sheep paddock. We opened the coop door in the morning and the chickens would go out with the sheep, through that little door in the run. At dusk, the chickens came back with the sheep and went into their coop to roost. They were locked in at night, for safety reasons.

We could close off the little connecting door in the run if we needed to keep them separated for some reason. Like for shearing day, worming, dusting chickens or any other reason. Sometimes you need to catch either the livestock or the chickens and you don't need everybody else underfoot.

 

[Mahonri]

As long as the hawks don't attack and coyotes can't jump over, go for it.

 

[trailhound]

My chicken coop is inside my pasture fence so the chickens mingle with the horse and goats. My barnyard area is in the woods and for the most part the chickens stay up there, but they have started to wander further on their own. I do love it when everyone is hanging out together in the barnyard. Sometimes my poor horse has so many other animals underfoot he can't take a step.

I will say that goats can fit through very small holes to get to chicken food. Somehow I think they can turn off their bones, lol.

-A

 

[cmom]

The birds love to scratch around in the manure. They spred out the piles.