To Free Range, or Not to Free Range...

[Lunachick]

Brian - I just peeked at your coop, that's a really nice one, good job on the building and design, I wish I was more handy with building things as nice as that!

 

[Yonaton]

I let mine free-range. I figure if anything *wild*, like coyotes, foxes, skunks, coons, opossums, etc kill any, that's fine because as I see it, for every new house/building that goes up in the country, that's one more acre of food or a food source taken from the wildlife that won't ever be recovered, and with the huge population explosion and the thousands/day of illegals coming here and crowding ever more outward from cities, the wildlife can have what they want of my chickens. I won't go out and tie them up for the critters, but I won't kill any more of them either.

 

[SeaChick]

We do the supervised free ranging as well. It has become a major activity for us: when my husband comes home from work in summer we go sit out in the yard, have a glass of wine, and watch the girls. Weekends, if it's nice, we have morning coffee outside with them. They sometimes get a little greedy and fly up to try to sample whatever we are eating/drinking though!

This has worked well because in summer they are out 2-4 hours a day most days. They have never strayed more than about 60 feet from their coop.

 

[tberggren]

Regarding supervised free ranging, how do you get the chickens back in the pen?

 

[Kaneke]

throw down some scratch, cracked corn, oatmeal, or other treat, and call "here chick chick"

 

[SeaChick]

Two ways to get them back in the coop: One is to shake the scrach cup, then throw some in the run/coop. The other way is to wave a garden rake at them, sort of "herd" them... mine are ridiculously terrified of the big red EVIL rake and scoot back immediately into the safety of the coop.
I have never, ever had a problem getting them back in the coop when I needed to!

 

[kayri]

Mine free range my 3/4 of an acre and my neighbors on both sides. We definitely have hawks, coyotes and more importantly in my mind, neighborhood dogs but so far (knock on wood) we haven't lost any yet.

They out themselves in at night and I shut the door behind them.

Come spring and summer,I am going to try to keep them inside their movable electric fence by putting it in areas they like and tend to hang out in anyway. Otherwise, I fear we will have no gardens.

 

[Royal Blue]

My birds free range during the day and return to the pen at night or when it rains. I have a red plastic coffee can I use to keep scratch in. When shaken it makes a sound the chickens can be trained to come to, and they do come to it. I also have hawks around, but my rooster alarms enough to warn the girls to take cover.

 

[chickenannie]

I feed treats to my free-range chickens and always give a special "call" to them. I use that call very judiciously, so that now, whenever I use it they are trained to always run over to me... into the coop... or wherever I want them to go. And I always reward them.

Chickens LIKE habits and that helps to train them. I keep mine locked up for at least 3 weeks when they're new to my place, and I feed them every morning and evening in their coop, even when they eventually free-range, and so they like to return home to roost.

You could start free-ranging them by letting them out only for an hour or two in the afternoon and then they don't have time to range far and will easily go back into the coop at sundown.

Just keep experimenting. If mine start roosting or laying eggs anywhere else, I coop them back up for 2-3 days and it re-trains them to their coop. I find they prefer to lay eggs in the coop and if they start laying elsewhere there's usually a reason that's fixable and they start laying inside again.

Whew! that was a long-ewinded answer....! sorry!

 

[DDRanch]

It is a hard decision.....my girls were free ranging a couple of hours in the am and again in the late afternoon, always locked up at night. About a month ago I lost one of my 8 mo old wanodottes to a red tailed hawk and I have been uneasy with them out unsupervised...so they have been in more lately and not happy about it. I specifically raised the larger breeds so hawks would not bother them...and I see that you have the larger breeds as well.

However, I took the advice of those on this site, provided more cover for them to duck into to (other than their covered pen, their coop and the shed, and am going to let them free range for short periods of time again while I am home but not guarding them. I am hoping they have put on enough weight and size that the hawks will leave them alone along with the extra hiding places.

Good luck and let us know what you decide.
Anne