Will my chickens run away?

[jhardy253]

I just started letting my 4 month old girls out of the pen to free range. At first they stayed close to the coop but last evening they came up around the house. They followed me back to the pen when I called them in for the night but this morning they were all the way out to the front of the house! They keep getting braver and I'm afraid they will get so far away that I won't be able to get them back. We live in the country and you can hear our neighbor's roosters who are about 1/4 mile away. Will my 8 girls try to join that flock?

 

[trailrider330]

Did you coop train your flock prior to letting them free-range? If so, I don't think you will have difficulties. Our neighbor has 2 acres and so do we. He also used to have chickens and we both free-ranged. His chickens would come in my yard and mine would go in his, but they always went home to roost in the appropriate coop. They are probably just getting more comfortable with their surroundings and are moving out further from the coop to investigate more.

 

[jhardy253]

I kept them in the coop and run for almost four months and then let them out for an hour or two at a time. I made sure they knew where the open door is so they can run back in if they need to. I love to see them exploring the yard and am relieved to know they won't get so far away that they can't find their way home!

 

[trailrider330]

Sounds like they will be able to find their way home just fine.

 

[azygous]

Don't worry! They've imprinted on their coop as home base and will always return to it. Usually, chickens won't move out of visual range of their coop and run. Some are more adventuresome than others, but they won't "run away".

Sometimes when a lone chicken shows up in someone's yard, it's because something happened to scare the chicken to run off and when they are panicked, they can lose their way.

 

[DanEP]

I have 15 acres and at any given time some are in the woods some are cleaning up under the neighbors bird feeder and some are in the coop eating and laying but they all show up at bedtime.