What are your opinions on free ranging?

[U_Stormcrow]

Let me make a point and maybe stir the pot a bit:

I would assert any argument that starts as “I can’t free range because I have too many predators” is an invalid argument unless you qualify it with “… because I have too many predators AND I raise breeds that are not predator resistant. I acknowledge that there are many breeds of chickens in the world that are highly predator resistant and would thrive in my predator-rich environment, but I choose not to raise those.”

If you don’t believe there are chickens out there that can out-thrive and reproduce faster than coyotes, hawks, and whatever predator gauntlet they’re thrown down can harvest them, then that just tells me there’s a bunch of chickens out there you need to learn about.

There’s no such thing as your location having more predators than the right chickens can handle.

The critical caveat is that most are unwilling to lose any bird to predation - even in the process of selecting for a flock well suited to their conditions. and as we all know, many predators do not satisfy themselves with a single kill, or even a single meal.

Its become rather expensive to feed the local predators with the a flock of backyard chickens large enough to be stable in the face of predator pressures in addition to the pressures we owners place upon them when we take birds for our own table.

and yes, I free range acres - but I won't pretend that my situation is typical.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Even though, we may have differing views on the subject of free ranging, I respect your experience and knowledge. In a sense, I think we probably have a similar over all goal. Being that I have been involved with agriculture since childhood I absolutely love the fact that so many people are keeping chickens. The concept of backyard chickens, as evidenced by this forum of the same name, showcases people from all over the world at all stages of experience sharing knowledge and asking questions. It’s great! Many folks are learning that they can keep chickens to provide eggs and or meat for themselves and possibly to share with or market to others.
It proves that we as individuals can produce some of our own food. Many rely totally on the current system/supply chain out of necessity or preference. Somewhere along the way, a lot of our agricultural production got big, and owned and/or controlled by huge conglomerate corporations. As is the case with chickens both layers and meat birds. Hogs are also that way. Small dairy farms are fading fast,
Beef cattle production is the last stand for small farmers. Beef cattle are still owned by individuals. The system is closing in and the few large packing corporations do control a vast majority of the market affecting both the farmers and consumers a like. They hold prices down when buying cattle before they process them, then raise the prices when selling to the grocery stores which have to raise prices accordingly to the consumers.
I would love to see a huge movement of local farmers being able to supply food directly to other local consumers and thus have to rely less on the big multinational corporations and the supply chain. Of course the big corporations don’t want that.
People having their own chickens proves that it can be done.

I suspect a renewed respect for goats will come first. a cow is simply too big an animal for almost anyone to process themself, and storage becomes impractical.

But I've been wrong (many, many, many times) before.

 

[KRack]

I don't free range because I like my garden.

I don't free range because we share the property with my sister-in-law who would be FURIOUS if my chickens ate her beloved flowers and dug the mulch out of her carefully-tended beds.



I would be very upset to have someone else's chickens wandering into my yard to damage my garden and my SIL's flowerbeds even "only" once a month.

Not to mention the possibility that they might bring disease to my flock or that a neighbor's rooster might fight my roosters or try to lure my hens into his flock.

My neighbors love our chickens too. I thought it was odd! We told them we planned to put a fence up between us and them to keep our chickens in our yard, and they urged us not to. They're an older couple and enjoy watching them. I asked several times because it made me uncomfortable, but they seriously insisted. I did tell them that if they ever changed their mind, we have the fencing and will put it up.

 

[Aunt Angus]

I would prefer to let them free range, but pretty much every chicken predator you can think of lives on my property. I wouldn't have chickens long if I let them free range.

I compromise by giving them a fenced and covered yard that is about 700 sq ft. Soon, that will be 1600 sq ft. It's the best I can do here

 

[Franklinridgefarms]

And that’s all my intent is, to make the point for reference purposes. There’s many reasons why free range isn’t practical beyond predators, and a person may not free range because they simply don’t want to, which is fine.

My war isn’t with people who choose to coop their chickens, I’m fighting the idea that cooping must be done. Somewhere along the way “I don’t want to” became “it can’t be done” in the conventional wisdom of poultry raising. .

Even though, we may have differing views on the subject of free ranging, I respect your experience and knowledge. In a sense, I think we probably have a similar over all goal. Being that I have been involved with agriculture since childhood I absolutely love the fact that so many people are keeping chickens. The concept of backyard chickens, as evidenced by this forum of the same name, showcases people from all over the world at all stages of experience sharing knowledge and asking questions. It’s great! Many folks are learning that they can keep chickens to provide eggs and or meat for themselves and possibly to share with or market to others.
It proves that we as individuals can produce some of our own food. Many rely totally on the current system/supply chain out of necessity or preference. Somewhere along the way, a lot of our agricultural production got big, and owned and/or controlled by huge conglomerate corporations. As is the case with chickens both layers and meat birds. Hogs are also that way. Small dairy farms are fading fast,
Beef cattle production is the last stand for small farmers. Beef cattle are still owned by individuals. The system is closing in and the few large packing corporations do control a vast majority of the market affecting both the farmers and consumers a like. They hold prices down when buying cattle before they process them, then raise the prices when selling to the grocery stores which have to raise prices accordingly to the consumers.
I would love to see a huge movement of local farmers being able to supply food directly to other local consumers and thus have to rely less on the big multinational corporations and the supply chain. Of course the big corporations don’t want that.
People having their own chickens proves that it can be done.

 

[U_Stormcrow]

View attachment 3122064

I just got into mini-cows. Way easier to handle than full sized cows.

I'm raising mini meat goats - which is to say that my dame keeps throwing males, which I wether and take at an early age - the sire outweighed me by a little, I'm about 160#. and they are mutts. As @1cock2hens said, price is up. With a wormer and the CDT, we can get $120 +/- for the latest boy around 8 weeks, depending on whether the buyer wants him intact or not.

 

[mowin]

Many different levels of free range. I've got 2 acres of my 8 fenced in and patrolled by my 3 dogs. I only let them out of the coop while I'm home and then only the last few hrs of the day. My main concern is hawks. Although I've had fox and coyotes jump the fence on occasion, but that's only happened while they were in the coop.

 

[ashcons]

If I weren't in suburbia, I would, but just like I don't want other peoples' dogs or cats digging and pooping on my property or interacting with my animals unsupervised, I imagine my neighbors wouldn't like my chickens digging around their plants, pooping in their yard, and/or visiting their flocks (disease).

On a few acres, I would be confident about chickens staying in my "yard," but on a standard lot (1/4 - 1/2 acre), I know they'll be visiting Marge's prize roses for some dust bathing and I'll have poorer neighbor relations for it even if I take Marge some eggs. Even with clipped wings, I found out through prior experience that several breeds can still clear a 6 ft. privacy fence with ease.

 

[Franklinridgefarms]

Let me make a point and maybe stir the pot a bit:

I would assert any argument that starts as “I can’t free range because I have too many predators” is an invalid argument unless you qualify it with “… because I have too many predators AND I raise breeds that are not predator resistant. I acknowledge that there are many breeds of chickens in the world that are highly predator resistant and would thrive in my predator-rich environment, but I choose not to raise those.”

If you don’t believe there are chickens out there that can out-thrive and reproduce faster than coyotes, hawks, and whatever predator gauntlet they’re thrown down can harvest them, then that just tells me there’s a bunch of chickens out there you need to learn about.

There’s no such thing as your location having more predators than the right chickens can handle.

Maybe so, but I will continue to do things the way we do. It’s nice to be able to have some good productive egg layers, and not have to worry about a whole laundry list of varmits picking them off.
I speak from the experiences of being a livestock farmer of multiple species for 30 years, and growing up on a farm before that. With cattle and especially young calves and cows giving birth, coyotes and black buzzards are a constant threat. Yes there are breeds that are more protective than others, when it comes to coyotes. There are points of vulnerability that they will use to attack. In the case of buzzards most of the time the sheer numbers of them encircling a cow and newborn calf end with them killing the calf and the cow exhausted from trying to fend them off.
I tried many different ways of predator (coyote) control when I had sheep and goats from electric fence, to llamas, donkeys, and Great Pyrenees. All worked to an extent but all had faults and eventually I had to give up trying and no longer have sheep and goats.
As a child I remember we lost chickens, ducks, geese, peafowl to predators. Due to less hunting and trapping, as well as more predatory species there are many more threats to animals now than back then.
My way of thinking is I’m not going to purchase and care for animals/birds only to have them killed in short order by any number of predators.
There may very well be breeds of chickens that are better at evading predators, and if anyone can make the free range thing work then that is great.

 

[Aunt Angus]

I have 4 does, and they keep my property free of fricken blackberries and poison oak, so they get moved where we need them. But they never have less than an acre... usually. They have less than that now because of all the dang trees we lost during Snowmageddon and Treepocalypse this year. We lost dozens of widowmaker trees, and we still have 5 that need to be removed. They took out a good chunk of the girls' temp fencing (it's pinned under a 50ft oak).