When to start free range?

[texas_chick]

My chickens hatched end of February/ beginning of March and won't lay until September, right?
So I have left them in the coop (mostly a big covered run with roosts, etc. because we're in South Texas) thinking they should stay there until they start laying so they start laying in the nest boxes rather than anywhere else.
Is that correct?
Or should I let them roam now and they will still figure out the nest box thing?
It's actually pretty hot around here now anyway and they might be better off in the covered run with their fan.
But theoretically for chickens that free range during the day and get locked up at night: when do they get to free range?
Thanks in Advance!

 

[gamebirdsonly]

I start free ranging mine around 7 to 8 weeks of age. As far as egg laying in box I have never worried about it I enjoy looking for eggs

 

[texas_chick]

Quote:
Hm. 5 wooded acres is a lot of area to hunt for eggs from just 5 chickens...

 

[Chickenmaven]

I would never free range. I live next to a springer spaniel & in an area thick with hawks.
People think that you "gotta" free range to have happy birds. Mine have a huge, covered run & I bring the garden scraps to them, so I think they are doing okay.
Just another perspective...

 

[debbie.h]

My hens have taken their little ones out to free range with them when they were only three days old. It is so cute to see them catch a bug.
I have about one acre fenced so they stay out of the woods.

 

[Chickeeta]

When my chicks hatched I kept them inside for two weeks, then moved then outside into a brooder (with heat lamp of course) for two weeks so my 5 hens and rooster could get used to having them around. THey are free-ranging. At 4 weeks I moved the 14 chicks that I kept for myself into the main pen and a few days later I started letting them outside the pen for an hour or so of supervised exploring, then half a day. By 5 weeks they were free ranging from around 10 AM to 5 PM. They are now 7 weeks and out for the full day with my 5 hens and rooster. They tend to stick together as separate groups but are usually (but not always) in site of one another. I call them the "Big Team" and the "Little Team." Last night was the first night that members of the Little Team slept on the perch with the Big Team, I think... there was suddenly a lot of small poo under the end that is not normally used. We have lots of birds of prey in our area but the rooster, the dog and the tree cover seem to have protected them so far.