Chickens - how free range do you have them?

[JPRambo]

We have 9 hens and a rooster. They overnight and daytime in the coop. When I get home they are let out into the fenced area if I am late. If I get home early 4pm I let them roam the yard. This bunch have never crossed the street.

 

[SandburRanch]

How well free range works is often determined by the nature of the range. Concerning preditors, close timber can be a disaster while more open works better in most instances. Turning them out an hour or two before roost time works well being it allows them to control the bug population that needs controlled as well as the benefit of green pasture and both of those aid in lowering the feed bill plus better quality eggs.

 

[TnAndy]

Most places, 'free range' is simply other words for BAIT.

Coyotes, fox, hawks, golden eagle (yep), raccoons, possum, domestic dogs/cats, turns out everybody's favorite meal is chicken.

Ours locked up in secure house with automatic door dusk/daylight....rest of the time, secure fenced area with overhead netting. Only time they ever truly free range is if we are right in the close area to guard.

 

[Kentuckyfarmer]

We have 27 that I have a chicken tractor and two electric chicken fences in. Makes a large area for them to roam and I move it every week or so. Also have 13 younger birds in a stationary coop with totally I closed yard that just started laying eggs. The ones in the electric fence are a couple years old and have started slowing down on laying so we are giving some to a neighbor that wants a few just to get a couple eggs every day or so. Mainly wants them for bug control around his house. I like the chicken tractor and electric fence because you can move the birds before they tear up the ground real bad and they look forward to moving after a week in the same place. Never lost any to critters or neighbors dogs yet. I keep the shotgun handy and have already put bird shot in a couple butts that were messing with the birds. They pretty much give the place a wide berth but every now and then they have to be reminded this place is off limits. Wild critters get the lead biscuit.

 

[JRobyn]

Everybody seems to be really liking the automatic doors. What happens if it's closing right when a chicken is going through? Or if a chicken doesn't get inside before it closes? Is that one just "bait for tonight"? I'm not convinced that ours are smart enough to use an automatic door!

 

[Zippo1]

Everybody seems to be really liking the automatic doors. What happens if it's closing right when a chicken is going through? Or if a chicken doesn't get inside before it closes? Is that one just "bait for tonight"? I'm not convinced that ours are smart enough to use an automatic door!

On the door I have it will stop closing if a chicken is in the door. At night, it will close then a few minutes later it will open again for a few minutes to give any chickens that didn't make it into the coop the first time a second chance. I've never had a chicken that wasn't safely locked in the coop at night with this door. And it's nice not having to get up at the crack of dawn to let the chickens into the pen for the day. I've had this one for three or four years now. The only time it's failed has been when a battery went bad. As I say, it's one of the best purchases I've made.

 

[TnAndy]

Everybody seems to be really liking the automatic doors. What happens if it's closing right when a chicken is going through? Or if a chicken doesn't get inside before it closes? Is that one just "bait for tonight"? I'm not convinced that ours are smart enough to use an automatic door!

Ours works on a timer....we simply set the time for 1/2 hour after dark, adjusting the time few times a year as sunset time changes. Same for opening time.

Door closes slow enough so that if one was in the door way when the motor starts, they would simply scoot in or out of the door opening....not like it slams down.

Only occasions where they have gotten locked out is IF we've had a power outage that throws the timer way off....like several hours. Then we do go down to the coop area and check to make sure nobody got locked out.

Note, this coop does have 120AC service to it to power the door and timer.

Another small coop I built for temporarily raising some new chicks to layers, I used the same door, but bought a 12v timer, and ran the opener (which is a 12v DC motor with a 'wall wart' to use on 120vAC) directly off a 12v battery with a 50w solar panel to keep the battery up.

Timer is the white box on the door, black box inside a small solar charge controller, panel is on the roof.

 

[radioman]

We started out with one coop that we kept them secure in for well over a year. We had just over a dozen birds in there and where getting about 8 eggs a day. Then I built a small horse barn and enclose one corner of it as another coop with another dozen or so birds. That second coop has a fence with hot wires on it, so we tried letting them out to see what would happen. They wondered all around, in and out of the fenced area without any issues. Coyotes and racoons left tracks going up to the fence, then either turning around real fast, or following it all the way around. The hot wire works!!!

Then my wife got the idea that she wanted different colored eggs, so she started getting all sorts of different chickens. That became expensive, so then we tried incubating them. That failed miserably. For a variety of reasons, we never got one egg to hatch.

Last year we decided to let the hens who wanted to sit on eggs, sit on the eggs, and see what happened. We ended up with about 60 that hatched. We took each one away from the nest and kept them indoors, inside a cage with a heat lamp, water and food. They quickly grew and developed their feathers. We put several of them them into the first coop, inside a dog kennel for about a week, and then released them into the coop with the other birds. We did this over and over again until the coop was too crowded.

We opened up that coop and hoped for the best. All of the birds ran out, spread out, and started eating bubs in the yard. They mingled with the birds in the other coop, and quickly developed little groups with each other that stay together as they wonder around. They never go too far, and usually are always in sight of the house. Some will come into the garage and steal cat food, others are very wild and you cannot get close to them.

Every morning at 7am, I open up the coop as part of my morning chores. One of the funnest things to see is all those chickens running out of the coop!!!!!

Once it starts getting dark out, they all go back to their coops for the night. They also go back there to the nesting boxes to lay their eggs. We're getting about 3 dozen eggs a day on a really good day, two dozen most days. Of all the chicks that hatched, we've had to kill dozens of roosters that where just plain mean and aggressive to us, and the hens. Roosters are the devil!!! As of today, I think we have six roosters and probably 40- 50 hens. We don't find all the eggs they lay, as some will find a spot out of the way. Two days ago, while getting something off of a shelf in our lean-to beside the garage, my wife found 5 baby chicks under a hen. We had no idea she had been nesting there. Then yesterday, there was another baby chick with six more eggs under her.

Hawks account for a few losses. Owls might get some too, but they would have to hunt during the day when the birds are out and about, which is rare. Coyotes are probably our biggest issue. They probably killed a dozen a year. We hunt coyotes and manage to get a few every year, but don't know if it's made a difference or not. We watch for tracks all the time, and after killing a coyote, we can see that there are not tracks for a while.

We also have dogs, and know of at least three chickens that have died after flying over the fence into their yard. We blame the roosters for that, as they can be brutal to the hens and eventually they will do anything to escape them. Roosters are the devil!!!!!

We expect to have a lot more chicks next year in the spring when we let them sit on their eggs again. I have no idea how many we will eventually have, but with free ranging them all day long, there isn't the same restrictions as when keeping them in a coop.


My wife after letting them out of our first coop.
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Feeding time at the horse barn. The chicken coop is barely visible in the back, right corner.
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Newest baby chicks, born around Oct 6 2017
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Our favorite rooster. He is a Buff Opington, and he is very protective of the ladies.
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Some of our fun to watch, crazy looking birds!!!
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good post eddie -- sounds like even if you didnt mean to - but it appears that you established rules for them and it must have stuck for "generations" for younger chicks to follow. since you have a larger flock - i guess losing a few doesnt hurt as much like those who try to keep 5-6 at a time.

 

[EddieWalker]

Thank you. We hate losing any of them to predators, but you are correct that with more birds, losses are less noticeable. With so many hatching, our biggest issue is dealing with roosters. Did I mention that they are the devil? We try to give them a chance to prove us wrong, but they just keep getting more and more aggressive until my wife says it has to go. Then everything calms down and all the hens are happier. Just guessing, I would say that I probably killed 3 dozen roosters this year. Some where from the group that hatched this year, some where older that just got too mean to deal with.

If we didn't free range them all day long, we probably wouldn't have any roosters. Keeping them in the coop created more conflict. Having space to run around calmed all of them down. It's really night and day how they behave.

 

[Creamer]

What kind do you have Eddie? When we had a few roosters it was great. One of them which my daughter named Grumpy became her pet - it would walk up on our deck and look in the windows to try to find her - didn't see her it would go around to the front porch and try again. She would run outside after it and they would run around for a while and then she would bring it back up on the deck and sit in the deck chairs with it. It was a great companion until one day the horse got him. I sure did not have to worry about chicken hawks with him around.