Why I’ll Never Free-Range My Chickens Again

[Fishkeeper]

Free ranging chickens can be happier, yes, but it's possible to have chickens in a run that are perfectly happy and fully enriched.

 

[chickengeorgeto]

If you are unable to act like Atilla the Hun, then free range chickens are not your cup of tea.

 

[ralleia]

If you are unable to act like Atilla the Hun, then free range chickens are not your cup of tea.

On spying a coyote or fox trotting through the horse pasture towards my chickens, I am able to sprint towards it, slip through the three-rail fence hardly knowing how I did it, and charge the furry varmint.

I love the look on their face when the notice the crazy middle-aged woman coming at them!

Does that count?

 

[llombardo]

There are risks to free ranging, just like their are risks when I leave the house and drive in an automobile. Freedom can be dangerous but free chickens are happier. Although I pen up all the chickens I breed. When they are are pullets and cockerels or Hens that are not in the breeding rotation they get freedom. All Roosters are penned though because I do not want to risk a rooster attacking a little kid.

I would not agree that free chickens are necessarily happier. When that is said it's generally the humans that are happier seeing the chickens free range. One could say dogs are happier running free but responsible owners don't allow that because of safety for the dogs and the safety of those in the general area. My guys are extremely happy in their pen. They have branches to walk and roost on and a chicken activity center that they all use. They have never free ranged, so they know nothing else, it's that simple. I'm not willing to take the risk and I'm pretty sure if they had the choice to know they were safe versus always watching for everything that wants to eat them from every direction, they would choose the safety.

Why do you pen up the ones that are in the breeding program? Are the others more disposable? This is not a judgemental question at all. Everyone is entitled to do their own thing. Some people consider chickens pets and choose not to take a chance with nature. Nature is not always kind.

I recently put up an extension if you will to the run, but that is also covered by a net and they are never out there alone for any reason, if I have to go to the bathroom they are all put back in the run and then I come back out and let them out again. I take zero chances with their lives. I worry enough about them in the run, I would have serious aniexty if I had to wonder if they would all be alive at the end of the day if they were not protected at all. I take life seriously, all life, it's a gift. I would be riddled with guilt if a life ended and I could have prevented it.

I just lost a duck recently, I believe she ate some plastic and had a blockage. It broke my heart and I think of her everyday. I've shed more then a few tears, because of the guilt and I miss her so very much. I even had her cremated and got her ashes. I know in my mind that I could not have known she was going to do that, but it still was a hard lesson to learn. You can't take it back. How I wish I could.

All I know is that I pray daily that my chickens/ducks stay safe and I check on them constantly.

 

[WthrLady]

Free-ranging isn't for everyone. I respect your choice.

 

[Hermit]

We’ve not lost one to free range, yet.

Notice the “yet”.

We HAVE lost one to a rat breaking into the outdoor brooder and getting the biggest little cockerel we had.
I wanted to strangle that damn rat!

…dog beat me to it.

He loves the chickens almost as much as my little dog did when they were his puppies. (Little Dog is now terrified of them - they’re all bigger than him and he doesn’t know how to handle it when Big Dog bounding through the property causes AN ENTIRE FLOCK OF DINOSAURS TO COME STAMPEDING RIGHT TOWARDS HIM.

 

[BantyChooks]

I haven't lost a bird to predators in over a year, and I free range. Honestly, I'm shocked I don't lose more than a few of the stupid ones to hawks now and then. Since the last attack, I've gotten rid of the last of the dumb breeds, in an effort to have a more cohesive and intelligent flock as a whole. I have multiple roosters that watch the skies and give advance warning of all danger.

I hope that never changes, because my birds are much happier and healthier when they can be out and about, and that's not my personal thoughts being applied to birds, it's my observation on their body language, activity, and rate of illnesses or parasites.

 

[Twoleggedmotherhen]

Don't free range, with the hawks, eagles, owls, coyotes, possums, racoons rats, and the chicken killing dog (landlord's son's dog) made the choice of no free ranging. I'm always on high alert, have to go out with Chihuahuas to make sure they are safe. Dog went missing a couple of weeks ago. We think someone stole her (no holes under fence, gates closed).
The 3 older hens (will be 4 in spring) free ranged for almost 3 years. They had to forage for their own food (landlord's son refused to buy feed, landlord moved to another state) before we took them in. They are calmer and happy now. Matter of fact they run away from the run door, they know they are safe. Only time they come and stay at the run door is when they see me with the treat bucket.

 

[Hermit]

I haven't lost a bird to predators in over a year, and I free range. Honestly, I'm shocked I don't lose more than a few of the stupid ones to hawks now and then. Since the last attack, I've gotten rid of the last of the dumb breeds, in an effort to have a more cohesive and intelligent flock as a whole. I have multiple roosters that watch the skies and give advance warning of all danger.

I hope that never changes, because my birds are much happier and healthier when they can be out and about, and that's not my personal thoughts being applied to birds, it's my observation on their body language, activity, and rate of illnesses or parasites.

I DO have one idiot.
Everyone puts themselves to bed when the sky starts to dim, except for two.
Rocket is one of the Rescue Rangers, and she’s set her stubborn tail feathers on NOT being a coop bird. I may have to learn to live with that, if she’ll negotiate with me on the whole “come down here and eat with the flock” part. She was rescued wild, and had probably survived one clutch’s destruction before ending up in a second attacked clutch. SHE goes so high into our impressive fig tree, or the ornamental pomegranate bushes (those will soon rival the telephone poles in height, and are a tangled mess of pencil thin branches or skinnier) that we have no chance of reaching her without borrowing a scissor lift or a cherry picker. She’s evaded every attack that’s come at her, and me trying to bring her back into caged life seems to be causing her more harm than good.
My idiot, on the other hand… is one of two jersey giant pullets. While everyone else is going into the coop to settle into bed from one of TWO ENTRY POINTS… she wanders back and forth between them, honking.
She’s my only honker. Her sister doesn’t honk. Her sister hops right in and goes to bed. My idiot honks, and is utterly baffled, even when picked up and placed directly in front of (or even on the bottom of) the ramp leading inside. She just walks away to go pace back and forth in front of the coop itself, honking.
So… every evening I scoop her back up, plop her back on the bottom of the ramp, and hold on to her while I *make* her “walk the plank. Then I have to hold her there while I shit the door behind her, or she’ll just hop right back out!!
She is NEVER hatching her own.

 

[Shadrach]

I respect the right of all chicken-keepers to make their own decisions regarding free-ranging,

I wonder if you would also respect the right of a chicken making its own decisions regarding incarceration, or freedom.