Topic of the week - Free Ranging

[Teila]

-- How do you ensure hens lay their eggs in the coop, instead of the garden/anywhere else they deem suitable?
Surprisingly my hens have never laid eggs anywhere but the coop. The ladies tend to have a pretty strict routine. I have occasionally found one or two on the ground inside the coop ( maybe the coop boxes were occupied )

Howdy The Cobb Farm

I also find the occasional egg on the coop floor or in the run.

Because my gals have fluffy butts, if they linger in the nest box after laying the egg it dries and sticks to their feathers, dropping off as they exit the nest box or walk down the ramp etc. This might be what is happening with your girls.

I bailed Blondie up in the garden one day, still carrying her egg around with her, nicely fused to her fluffy butt

 

[CrazedCowgirl]

- What pros and cons have you experienced when deciding to free range your flock?

Pros: My girls are happier. They lay richer eggs.they debug my garden and flower beds. They seem to go through less commercial feed during the spring, summer and fall. So far, my girls are pretty healthy. I haven't had any cases of lice/mites or respiratory issues.

Cons: They seem to think they can make their own dust bathes where ever they want, including in the middle of my veggie garden. I have one hen who thinks my fuchsia is a better nest then the nest boxes I have in the coop. I haven't had a clean patio in a year. As much as I love my birds, I'm pretty sure my neighbors hate it when 4 or 5 of them sing their egg songs at 5 am.

- How do you keep your flock safe when out roaming?

For the most part, my girls are pretty good at protecting themselves by my German Shepherds make sure that the cats stay out of the yard.

- How do you ensure hens lay their eggs in the coop, instead of the garden/anywhere else they deem suitable?

Of my 7 hens currently laying, I only have 1 that lays in the yard. I mostly think it's on days when everyone wants to lay at the same time. I have 5 nest boxes but everyone seems to favor only 1 of them. She's a newer hen so I'm hoping she'll learn to lay in a nest box all the time.

- How do you train new rangers to return to the coop at night?

I've never had to train my girls to go to bed. Everyone seems to head to the coop as the sun's going down on their own. Even my little babies head to bed themselves.

 

[RodNTN]

- What pros and cons have you experienced when deciding to free range your flock?
Pro's: Delicious, healthy, nutritious (very orange) eggs. My flock is so entertained with free ranging, and so much happier! It cuts a huge price in feed bills, since all of of the bugs, grass, weeds, etc. supplement their diet. Also, you don't have to worry about feeding them grit, they will find their own! Another pro: the chickens droppings fertilize your yard!

Cons: The biggest con is predators: I have had problems with coyotes, hawks, opossums, skunks, owls, dogs, etc. Plus, when chickens are free ranging they have access to the road, and that is a big problem, another problem with free ranging is the chickens messing up your garden, and pooping all over the porch and the porch steps.

- How do you keep your flock safe when out roaming?
You can't do much when your flock is free, just keep an eye out for a straying chicken or a predator. I go out a few times a day when my flock is ranging and do a head count, just to be sure. And a good watch dog helps, I have 2 dogs who keep an eye out for predators and the flock.

- How do you ensure hens lay their eggs in the coop, instead of the garden/anywhere else they deem suitable?
When my flock is just coming of age, and getting ready to lay- I leave them in the coop (with access to a run) with fresh, soft bedding in the boxes. Make sure the nests are dark, and out of the way of the rest of the flock- chickens want privacy when laying their eggs. And fake eggs help, that could be plastic Easter eggs, wooden eggs, golf balls, old door knobs, anything that resembles an egg and tricks the pullet

- How do you train new rangers to return to the coop at night?
Leave them in the coop for a while (2 or 3 days, maybe more) until they realize the coop is safe to return to. Spread mealworms or corn (or the chickens favorite treat) to attract the girls into the coop and close the door once they are all in.

 

[kadavis08]

I live smack bang in the middle of suburbia on a standard residential block with 5 x pampered pet bantams. I work from home.

Free range was supervised only starting at 4PM in the afternoon when I had finished work and the majority of the day on the weekends. The girls used to start asking to be let out around 3PM.

This was fine until Crystal hatched, grew up and discovered that she could make noises that would put a Peacock X Duck to shame!

Because of the noise she could and was making, I started having to let them out at 3PM so that I could concentrate on work and the neighbours did not get annoyed. Of course, because free range was now 3PM, she started demanding at 2PM .. you can see where this is going? They now get let out at 5AM in summer and free range the back yard all day

What pros and cons have you experienced when deciding to free range your flock?
Pros .. quieter, happier chickens.
Cons .. Increased risk of loss from predators.

How do you keep your flock safe when out roaming?
Living in suburbia and working from home is definitely a bonus in that I can race out if the alarm is raised due to an overweight, pampered puddy cat encroaching on their territory.
Lots of places for them to hide from aerial predators [which we do not see often; 2 x Hawks in 6 years and way off in the distance].

How do you ensure hens lay their eggs in the coop, instead of the garden/anywhere else they deem suitable?
Probably because they are 2-4 years in age range and have always laid in the nest box it is more of a case of try and stop them; they kick up a huge stink if they can not get into the coop to lay.

We are living the same life. I only have two hens right now, though. The one con I didn't mention in my post is the chicken poop on our porch. Since they are free range during the day like yours they like to come up on the porch...moreso if we are home because they come up and peck at us through the patio door, they are emotionally high maintenance...they poop all over our porch daily. But, I can easily spray it off, so not much of a price to pay.

 

[kadavis08]

LOL! Not only can they tell time, they also know what day of the week it is! I swear they know when it is Sunday and they get to share a small piece of cheese, which we have to spell out, you can't say Cheese without having 5 bantams begging at your feet.

Before their full time free range they would start asking earlier than usual to be let out on the weekend. In all seriousness, I believe they know by our activities and surrounding environment [less traffic noise, more people in their houses noise] that it was the weekend and they should be out

Even on full time free range, 4PM on the dot pretty much, they start appealing because they know I am knocking off work and that they get meal worms

[Sorry, I couldn't help myself, had to respond .. back to the subject at hand

]

Mine know if we are home and stalk us through the glass patio door on the weekends. I mean, smash themselves against it and will take naps there during the day.

 

[kadavis08]

Is one defence against aerial predators to keep only Jersey Giants/Orpingtons/Brahmas?

I have heard that New Jersey Giants are amazing for this reason, their size but also their personality, and I actually nearly ordered a pullet to replace an orpington I had lost to illness over Thanksgiving. A friend told me that Buff Orpingtons were "nature's popcorn", but I haven't had issues. I don't live on a farm though with regular predators. Our hens are city slickers.

 

[TeeMom]

- What pros and cons have you experienced when deciding to free range your flock?
Pros: Happy chickens = happy eggs and I feel like my flock is exceptionally happy. We have 20 chickens right now, but have had close to 50 before we culled cockerels...our feed consumption is much easier to swallow once we can let the little guys roam with the rest of the flock. They are fantastic entertainment and myself and my kids spend a lot of time watching them, following them, scooping them up and loving on them and feeding them treats.
Cons: I battle them when it comes to my garden and potted plants. Rocks laid over the soil in my big pots on the porch seem to help keep my plants alive a bit longer every summer, but it's not foolproof. I think my next step is going to have to be hotwire at the top of my garden fence to keep them out of there. Such fun.

- How do you keep your flock safe when out roaming?
Our setup is pretty ideal for free-ranging. We are on 7 acres, but the main "yard" area is on about 2 of those and is bordered on 3 sides of double layer pine and cedar trees for wind break (thank you, Kansas). Within those borders, we have a small orchard and many ornamental trees, so they graze in the shade of those trees and run between the shadows for cover. Then they bed down in the afternoons under the thick cedar trees in the back. They rarely rarely wander beyond those tree borders and those borders also contain the underground fence for our dogs. During most days, the dogs are there and are very watchful. In the 2 years we have had chickens, we have lost 2 each fall to immature hawks that are looking for an easy meal and one to something big enough to carry her off only leaving a pile of feathers behind. The scene of the crime was right along the road and border of their normal range. All 5 losses happened on days when our dogs were inside due to weather or some other factor...so, I try to keep them out there as much as possible. I have also made my husband stop picking off our resident rabbits to make sure our hawks have adequate natural prey available. I close up the coop overnight and we have never had a breach into the coop *knocking on wood*...our dogs are always indoors at night and we routinely catch coyotes, bobcats, raccoons and opossums on our trail cam in the pasture to the north of their normal range, but so far they haven't come knocking.

- How do you ensure hens lay their eggs in the coop, instead of the garden/anywhere else they deem suitable?
I very rarely have problems with them laying anywhere but in the coop. There are 10 nest boxes in there and that is where food and water are always available, so they have good reason to come back. Not only that, but one of my dogs has figured out the egg song and what it means, so if they lay outside of the coop she is right there when they come off of it to slurp up their hard work. Her enthusiasm for their eggs seems to deter them from laying within her reach. The coop is much safer for their eggs. Haha

- How do you train new rangers to return to the coop at night?
I've never had to train them really. With the exception of 2 full grown roosters, we have always acquired our chickens as chicks, so they have spent weeks in a brooder pen in the coop before being set free. By the time they are out and about, the definitely know where home is. We introduced 2 grown roos from our neighbor to our original pullets the first fall we had them and we pretty much threw them into the coop at night after they were roosting and then opened the doors in the morning. The neighbor kept her eye out for returning roosters, but I think they were happy to have all of these new pullets to themselves instead of having to share with the rooster-saturated flock that she had. They acted like they had always been here.



This is a picture of a picture, so not the best quality, but gives an idea of their cover. This is an old picture, but their coop is at the back end of the addition behind the house.

 

[Beekissed]

If given the choice (and space) many of us prefer to free range our flocks, but there are pros and cons to this practice. This week I would like to hear you all's thoughts on free ranging and what you did to overcome the potential problems arising. Specifically:

- What pros and cons have you experienced when deciding to free range your flock?
- How do you keep your flock safe when out roaming?
- How do you ensure hens lay their eggs in the coop, instead of the garden/anywhere else they deem suitable?
- How do you train new rangers to return to the coop at night?

Pros~

Natural chicken life takes place, where they perform the behaviors that chickens out on the land normally do, foraging for the type of feed that they can best digest and utilize for nutrition, where they can seek out and consume natural anthelmintics, come and go as they please, rest in the coolness of the woods and grass or sun in a dusty spot of their own choosing. They can even choose to lay a clutch, sit it and hatch their young out on the land like God intended if they so choose. It makes for better tasting eggs, stronger shells, healthier birds in all ways, and they have more control over their own life or death out there on the range, not being confined to a space where a predator can get them cornered and they cannot get away.

Feed costs are reduced drastically.

I too get a benefit from it all as I see them, beautiful and free out there on the land. I get the satisfaction of knowing I'm doing my best as a steward of God's creatures by giving them as natural a life as I possibly can. I also benefit from the pest bug control, the fertilization of the very soils on which their food is grown, and they give my dogs a job to do, which is a benefit to their natural life as well.

Cons~

Poop sometimes ends up in places I wish it wouldn't, I have to protect my flower gardens from being scratched up, and they are subject to predation from Great Horned Owls in the early mornings and late evenings. The dogs can foil many of these attacks but not when the chickens are foraging out of the dog's reach. This doesn't happen often but in different years and seasons it can happen. When they brood out in the woods, sometimes they locate their nests too far out and the dogs cannot provide protection.....too far in and the dogs will raid the nest.

How do I keep the flock safe while they are out on range?

https://www.backyardchickens.com/a/bees-key-points-to-successful-and-safe-free-ranging

How do I ensure the hens lay their eggs in the coop?

Vigilance. Keeping track of egg counts and listening for hens cackling that laying cackle out in the woods. Then one can lock them in the coop for a week to retrain to the nests and that usually does the trick. If I do find a nest out in the woods, it's generally being used by more than one hen...that nest is emptied and then disturbed so greatly that they don't return to that nesting site again.

How do you train new rangers to come to the coop at night?

I don't. I don't need to. No one else needs to either. Generally, chickens will return to their coop at night to roost. There may be a stray bird here and there~usually new to the flock in some way or getting picked on at roosting time~that will try to roost elsewhere at night, but that's easy to remedy. You just put them in the coop each time until they retrain to the coop roosts. If they don't, a predator may pick them off out there and the problem is solved. If you have a new flock of birds to the coop, it's wise to keep them confined to the coop for a week until they learn that this is a safe place to roost and then you can just let them return there on their own each evening.

 

[room onthebroom]

We have opossums sleep with our chickens. They are after the chicken food. We thought it was the opossums for a long time when we were losing but found out that it was raccoons. Since the opossums are so slow in moving they were the only ones left to be seen around the melee so we thought is was them and come to find out when we came up suddenly, there was a raccoon and the opossum was just out with the chickens. Opossums are more for grain and bugs than even eggs. Usually get blamed because they are the only ones left to see, with the other predators being much faster disappearing. We have 10 chickens that sleep in the barn with the guinea fowl and since it is not air tight, opossums will get in and eat the chicken feed and wild game feed and sleep in there. Slooooowly walk out in the morning to find somewhere else to hide for the day. We have a resident opossum that lives under one of our sheds that comes out at night to eat wild bird seed, and any dog food that our GP has not eaten. It used to live under the shed with an armadillo.
We are more concerned with the copperheads we find that are very willing to grab a chick, frog, toads, lizards, salamanders etc. Especially since it is illegal to kill them here.

Have not lost a chicken in years at night since positioning at raccoon height Nite Guards around the chicken house and three tractors. We still see our opossum friend. The red and gray fox families love to appear during the day along with the loner, raggedy old coyote. The dogs chase them away real quick.

https://www.opossum.org/facts.htm

Omnivorous: eats insects, snails, rodents, berries, over-ripe fruit, grasses, leaves, and carrion; occasionally will eat snakes, ground eggs, corn or other vegetables.

My neighbors have had problems with raccoons & opossums. We've actually gone out there in the middle of the night when we've heard their chickens screaming to find a opossum reaching thru the wire holding a handful of chicken. I know raccoons are the worst, but I wouldn't trust a opossum anywhere near my girls. Did I read that right -- You are not allowed to kill copperheads? That's just crazy!!!

 

[room onthebroom]

Pros: I love watching them 'work' in the yard. One of my favorite things in the world is watching them run to us when they see us coming. Its not only about snacks, most of them love to be held.

Cons: Like everybody else, poop on the porch is the biggest con. I tried to pretend for years that it didn't bother me, but in all honesty it drives me up the wall! If I clean the porch at any time of the day, they run over & poop on it again. If I wait until they go to bed to clean the porch, its pooped on first thing in the morning.

I do worry about predators, but so far (knock on wood) have been very lucky. We can't have a rooster, but the duck is very alert & very loud. We are home a lot of the day & that helps too.

The new girls brooder gets put out in the coop a couple weeks before we let them free range with the big girls. I think watching the big girls come in & out teaches them what to do. I've only had one hen that refused to go to bed in the coop. She would insist on roosting on the 3ft fence around the run. We had to manually put her to bed every night. My duck was different. We had to herd her in every night for about 3 days before she finally 'got it'.

Mine have mostly always laid in the coop, but not always in the nesting boxes. If someone makes a cool new nest behind the roosting stairs, or next to the stray bale, then they ALL want to do it for a week or two until a particular nesting box becomes popular again.

Here's a 'con' question I've been recently wondering about; Does not free ranging your birds cut your risk of Marek's because the hens are not as exposed to wild birds & other biosecurity breaches???