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[Anna Ranieri]

I wish I could take the credit but so many others have died along the way. This isn’t a good place to free range really. Once chickens have free ranged and enjoyed their freedom, despite the risks involved, it’s very hard to confine them to a run. Here the problem is hawks and to build a large hawk proof run that would give them anything like the roaming area they have just isn’t realistic in the circumstances.

One of my biggest worries is hawks, the hawks we get in my area keep well out of sight and typically are not spotted until they attack in flight and although they prefer to attack in air, they are increasingly changing to land attacks, easy pickings I guess - my mum lost a cockatiel to a hawk a few years back and a while ago I saw one catch a blackbird right over my garden, it just came out of nowhere. I pray a lot asking Jesus to take care of my birds and I am thankful they are pretty good at alerting us when danger is about - the drakes do their danger call and my alpha chicken does hers at the same time. My chickens are very brave and one of my pullets will always go in to fight, as do the drakes, just a few or so weeks ago they saw off a cat who was after our youngest pullet, she was about 8/9 wks at the time, my daughter hearing the noise ran out into the garden just in time to see the cat running for its life with 7 birds hot on its tail, I've seen it walking in my front garden since but it hasn't come into our back garden since, however I do worry a lot about predators, especially hawks and foxes which we have a lot of where I live.

 

[Anna Ranieri]

My daughter has ordered a UK version of Nutir Drench. I assume they are all very similar.

I am assuming they are. My daughter informed me this morning that the one we have is actually the British version - Nutri-Drops - I have no idea what I'm doing most of the time lol. However she's found an American seller on ebay, selling Nutri - Drench for quarter the price of the British version, so we will be getting that next, as are on very low income so try our best to cut down expenses whenever we can.

 

[Anna Ranieri]

This is one good thing about BYC. There are a lot of experienced people who have kept chickens and ducks for many years. Unfortunately sometimes they are not the most vocal and it took me a while to work out who gave solid advice.
I was completely appalled by some of the medical type responses, not because the advice was bad, but because of the range of ailments they seemed to have had in their flocks. One might have been forgiven for thinking they ran a chicken hospital rather than a healthy flock of chickens. If I had experience of that many diseases I wouldn’t have any chickens left!
It took me a while to work out the were just people who had read a lot of stuff and had taken up the role as BYC vet/advisor, whatever.

I have been very fortunate to have found a few BYC'rs who give good advice and will admit when they don't know the answer, I am also very fortunate that I am friends with a breeder/seller, and can get help and advice from him anytime I need to. He used to be my manager years ago and I had been great friends with his wife, we all left the company within the same year and as often happens we lost contact, after getting my first few ducks and chickens, I saw an advert of theirs and so contacted them, we are now back in regular contact, plus I am free to get advice from them whenever I need to.
May I ask what led you to getting chickens in the first place?

 

[Anna Ranieri]

The roosters calcium trap. I'm trying to write an article on it. It's quite complicated with free range chickens because of the way the roosters eat. Calcium works relatively quickly and because the roosters tend to give what they find to the hens during the day, they feed load at morning a evening. With layers pellets they get a major calcium blast and this I think may be part of the problem.

With drakes, layer feed can damage their liver and kidneys, and has been connected with shortening the life spans of drakes - is this the same with cockerels?

 

[Anna Ranieri]

It's a shame how commercial hens are treated, certainly. Although we no longer have battery farming (thank god), many producers look at chickens as a quick buck. I know of several livestock farms locally who have a large shed packed with layers who are largely ignored aside from the eggs they produce. Drive past several most days. It's not a model I subscribe to, and having taken birds in in the past, I'm unlikely to do so again from a commercial environment.

I had 24 ex commercial hens from a free range environment one year; rejected every one he picked up and selected out my own. One survived to the age of 5, the rest did not, though many of them were lost in a stoat attack a few years ago. Conversely, I have two home-bred birds at 9 years old, and not showing signs of decline. I don't think that birds formerly held in an intensive environment are able to fit into my flock; I noticed a significant lack of vigour with regard to foraging and ranging.

Unfortunately, most people just don't seem to care; you hear about city kids who don't know what a cow is and think no-one can be that clueless, but there's more of those than there are of us.

ETA: One of those local producers I mention formerly worked as a stockhand for my uncle. He had some form of respiratory infection go through his flock last year, was still trying to reclaim cash by selling them on for a pound a piece. Complete lack of sense or care for other flocks and wild birds.

That's awful, those poor birds - I guess that's what comes from people seeing them only as a commodity. My dad is Italian, when alive his parents kept chickens, their treatment of their chickens was awful. They had them purely for food, eggs and meat, as kids we had to go there for four weeks every year, I hated it and I hated the way they treated their animals, I still have the harrowing memory of seeing my nana kill, pluck and cooking them - she thought it highly amusing to chase us around with the feet of a chicken she had killed. She could never understand our upset, nor why we refused to eat the animals she'd killed, she used to say we are strange. They once had a cow, we named her Louisa, she was so friendly and tame, she came when we called her, she let us ride her and cuddle her, then one year we arrived there to find they had had her butchered and couldn't understand why we spent the whole time in tears and wouldn't eat the meat. I just happened to be a person who gets emotionally involved with my pets, they become part of our family, I guess these people don't get emotionally involved nor get attached to the animals they have, to them its just money.

 

[Anna Ranieri]

When I first took an interest with ex battery hens I looked into the name of them. The first hens I got were 16week old WARREN pullets. Then I heard them called ISA brown. Turn out that the Warren's are actually the same hen but have been fortunate not to end up in a commercial environment. ISA is a French genetics company called Institut de Selection Animales. It is now owned by Hendrics genetics. Here is an interesting link.
https://www.hendrix-genetics.com/en/hendrix-genetics/
Technically the Warren hen isn't even a breed. It's not only hens that are subject to become super hybrid forms of food production. If I could be self sustaining I would. I don't know how far things can go. I read something on here about growing your own meat birds. It was a sponsored thread that was telling you how to get the most from a back yard cornish x. Where we talk of chicken math and how much space a chicken needs, these birds are in reality, crammed into barns at 11-25 birds per SQUARE METER!!! That's chicken math out the window. Again selective breeding and genetics have produced an un savoury way to produce meat quickly. It almost seems an inconvenience that these poor animals are actually alive. It makes me so sad to see that this is what being at the top of the good entails.

I read that broilers are slaughtered at 9 weeks old, I can't imagine what they give them and do to them to make them grow so big and so fast, my youngest (a Buff Orpington) is just under 12 weeks old and although looks big compared to my RIR hybrids, shes majority feathers. I also read that chicken sudden death syndrome is most common amongst broilers.
May I ask if you have meat birds and if so do you cull them yourself? Just pure curiosity

 

[Anna Ranieri]

I feel bad about my run. Although they do have more than double the recommended amount of space, I wish I could afford them more. When I was younger and we had chickens on the farm they were true free range. There was no fences anywhere and they rooted in an old barn at night. Unfortunately I wasn't too into chickens then but I can't remember having predator problems or health problems. I do remember a couple of the hens that were really quite old and hobbling around. We used to keep turkeys for Christmas too!

From what I've seen yours is fabulous

 

[Anna Ranieri]

The genetic modification of chickens and livestock in general is disgusting. The conditions they live in a barbaric. An interesting point is I’ve seen some coops and runs here on BYC that aren’t that much better.
An extra couple of square feet isn’t imo better enough.

I believe I'd fall into this category, my only defense is I'm doing the best I can. They have full run of the garden everyday and I only put them in the run when no one is here as I want to keep them safe. I'm not going to go into what I have and haven't got here, but of one thing I am certain, they are very happy here with us. They don't like being locked in the run and they have their way of letting me know it, but if there's no one here to watch over them, then we lock them in for their own safety.

 

[Anna Ranieri]

Your run looks pretty decent in the article pics. Some people want to keep a bit of garden too. Free range comes at a price and only you can decide if the price is worth paying, unfortunately the chickens can’t vote on the matter.
There are always predators. Some people don’t get any for years and then one day a fox turns up. This is particularly relevant in the UK now I’m told by people I know who keep chickens there. The suburban fox has become a daytime hunter.

We have lots of foxes here, I've lived in this home for 25yrs and have never had a fox come in my garden and I'm hoping that won't change, but they are close enough that I can hear them at night. My parents live about a 10 min walk from me and they get frequent visits from foxes in their garden. One of the near by residents lives next to one of the woods they live in, he lost a whole flock to foxes his first time having chickens, that was almost 9 years ago, he didn't know foxes can dig under and that's how they got into their run. He took the necessary measures and although foxes frequent his garden, they haven't managed to get his flock which he has had for 8yrs. In august he sat on his patio and had a fox walk right past him! I have concrete slabs around my run and under the slabs I have a skirting of pheasant wire, the run is made of pheasant wire which is doubled up, - at night the birds are locked in their houses which are in the run which is also locked, I hope it is enough. Fox attacks on humans is on the rise, especially babies, toddlers and young kids is rapidly increasing and there have been several deaths since 2010, in Feb this year a fox broke into a home in Plymouth and attacked a 7 month old baby, thankfully the grandfather managed to scare it off and rushed the baby to hospital with extensive wounds. Apparently it had killed the neighbours cat the day before. The family of the attacked baby, contacted the RSPCA because the fox is still frequenting their garden trying to get in but nothing has been done about it and last report was that it is still going into their garden everyday. Many have reported foxes entering their homes via cat flaps but one woman told of foxes actually bit off her backdoor step and the bottom of her back door until it could squeeze in though the hole it made and then it attacked her sleeping baby. Its seems even our own homes are not fox proof.

 

[Sneebsey]

I have lost birds to foxes in the past as I free range during the day; winter is coming now, and that's when I tend to lose a few. Although it's heartbreaking, I make my peace with the snatch and grabs as it is something trying to feed itself. We do have dogs around which helps protect the flock.

My biggest fear is polecats. They just kill for the fun of it and we have had them here a few winters now.

Although secured at night, free range is the best choice for my set up, regardless of inevitable losses. We lost 3 last winter to snatch and grabs, including, of course, my favourite. Hoping that this year will be lighter on them; more dogs around and building work going on locally which might keep them from crossing the valley from the woodland.