Free-range
hens: What you should consider before letting your flock out.
By Angelina on July 15, 2010
If you have (or are thinking about getting) a backyard flock of
chickens you should consider the possibility of letting your flock free-range.
Chickens are foraging animals and thrive best when they can hunt for insects
(and lizards!) and greens which no chicken run provides. Being able to
scavenge the lawn for worms, to pluck at grass and weeds, and to explore is
deeply satisfying to them.
We let our first flock of hens free-range a couple of hours a day (the last couple of hours of daylight) and they loved it. It was wonderful to sit out in my garden and listen to the hens scratching, cooing, and scuffling. If I was doing yard work they would follow behind me to see what interesting activity I was up to.
By the time we got our second flock of hens we had a dog. The dog went wild when she saw the birds in the coop the first time and Philip had to train her to not get excited around them. Between that and the fact that the yard wasn't properly fenced, we never let this flock free-range. Naturally I was scared of the dog killing the chickens because I've known quite a few chicken-killing dogs.
At our current house the fencing isn't an issue and we've been wondering for a long time whether or not our dog might be trained not to kill the hens if we let them out. So we planned to do some experiments with the dog and the birds this summer but in the end the whole question of the dog versus the hens was effortlessly answered while Philip was working on building the new coop one evening. He had to have the chicken run door open for some reason, the dog was close by, the access was there, and nothing happened. The chickens ventured out and our dog continued to watch them with no more than casual interest.
Just like that we are now able to let them free-range and I can tell you that they are very excited about the yard!
It worked for our flock this time, but will it work for yours? There are some things you need to consider before letting your flock free-range in your yard:
We let our first flock of hens free-range a couple of hours a day (the last couple of hours of daylight) and they loved it. It was wonderful to sit out in my garden and listen to the hens scratching, cooing, and scuffling. If I was doing yard work they would follow behind me to see what interesting activity I was up to.
By the time we got our second flock of hens we had a dog. The dog went wild when she saw the birds in the coop the first time and Philip had to train her to not get excited around them. Between that and the fact that the yard wasn't properly fenced, we never let this flock free-range. Naturally I was scared of the dog killing the chickens because I've known quite a few chicken-killing dogs.
At our current house the fencing isn't an issue and we've been wondering for a long time whether or not our dog might be trained not to kill the hens if we let them out. So we planned to do some experiments with the dog and the birds this summer but in the end the whole question of the dog versus the hens was effortlessly answered while Philip was working on building the new coop one evening. He had to have the chicken run door open for some reason, the dog was close by, the access was there, and nothing happened. The chickens ventured out and our dog continued to watch them with no more than casual interest.
Just like that we are now able to let them free-range and I can tell you that they are very excited about the yard!
It worked for our flock this time, but will it work for yours? There are some things you need to consider before letting your flock free-range in your yard:
- Fencing: especially in a suburban environment, you need to make sure your fencing is secure. It should be 6' tall (most hens won't fly such a tall fence, though it isn't impossible because chickens did start out as jungle birds who lived in the trees) and it should not have any gaps in it big enough for the chickens to get out through. It is equally important that no neighborhood dogs can get in to your chickens.
- Dogs: if you have a dog you need to make sure of your dog's feelings about the chickens before you simply let them out. A dog who wants to kill a chicken will accomplish the job so quickly you will not likely have time to save the situation. If anyone has any tricks or tips on training dogs to be mellow about chickens please share!
- Mess: Chickens poop, a lot. They do it whenever they need to and don't care where it lands so your yard will be scattered with their droppings. I have never minded this. They tend to prefer being in the dirt, the lawn, or under foliage rather than on pathways and decks, so I don't mind a little mess from them.
- Scratching: Chickens forage by scratching at the ground with their strong clawed feet. This is how they unearth seeds and grubs. They will make holes in the garden. They can be quite devastating to shallow rooted plants. One of their favorite things to do in the warm weather when it's hot is to find a shady spot in the dirt and dig themselves a shallow hole to dust themselves up in. I find this charming except when they unintentionally expose the roots of nearby plants.
- Snacking: While it's true that chickens will often hunt down your slugs and snails and also enjoy plucking at a wide range of weeds, they really have an all-inclusive palate. This means that they will equally enjoy snacking on young vegetable seedlings, flowers, rose leaves, and peck around any available fruits or vegetables.
- Getting them back in the coop: Come dusk most chickens will automatically find their way back to the safety of their coop. They are almost night blind so as the light begins to fade they will wander closer back to safety until they put themselves to bed. Letting your hens free-range puts a responsibility on you to make sure that they've all made it back into the run and/or coop before dark and that you LOCK them in. Sometimes a hen will get flustered and not find her way back before it's too dark and she'll just settle down right wherever she is and hope for the best. The best does not usually come to hens sitting out all night without protection. Weasels, snakes, skunks, and most of all, raccoons all want to eat your birds and they are just waiting for an opportunity to snatch them. Nightfall is when most of them come hunting*. So if you can't commit to locking your birds in at dusk every single night, you should not let them out.
- Birds of Prey: Although I haven't personally had a problem with chicken hawks or other birds of prey, you need to know if that might be a problem where you live as Belinda pointed out in the comments. A large hawk can carry a chicken away, but especially vulnerable are smaller breeds such as banties. If you don't know if you have such birds of prey in your area, ask the poultry experts** at your local farm store.
With my first flock I started off letting them free-range all day long but after experiencing the damage they did to my most tender vegetable plantings I decided to only let them out during the last two hours of daylight (generally when I liked to be in my garden too) so I could watch over them and scare them off of any fresh plantings. This served me very well. The girls got some well deserved foraging in and some freedom but didn't have enough time to do much damage. The reason I let them out at the end of the day, instead of in the morning, is because not all chickens are easy to catch when they don't want to be caught, but all chickens naturally return to their roost as it darkens which cuts down on work for me.
If I had a bigger property and could fence off my vegetables I would let my flock free-range all day. But even a couple of hours a day will improve the quality of life your flock enjoys, not to mention the vastly improved quality of the eggs they reward you with. It's true! The more your birds get to forage on weeds and bugs and dirt the richer their yolks will be.
Not everyone who keeps chickens will be able to let them free-range. What can you do to improve your flock's quality of life in a run? Here are three things you can do:
- Weed toss: When you weed your yard, toss the fresh weeds into the chicken run. The bigger the pile you give your flock the happier they'll be scratching around in it, eating the leaves (rich in vitamins!) and looking for any attached bugs.
- Be sure to give them straw in their run: This gives them a satisfying feeling of digging, which makes a nice rustling noise as they work through it. When it's time to put new straw in the run I bring it in a big chunk and don't spread it around. The birds like to do this themselves and you'll find they do a great job of distributing it around the run.
- Kitchen scraps: I think if birds can't go looking for treats it's important to give them treats from the kitchen. No grains (except fresh corn!) because if you feed them commercial feed they're already getting all the grain they need, and avoid giving them potatoes. Otherwise you can give them anything. You'll probably find that they have preferences (mine won't eat carrots but LOVE turnips, for example). The scraps will enrich their diet, which will enrich their eggs, and it's a way to compost some of your kitchen scraps.
There are two sounds I like best in the world: the first one is the sound of my kid laughing, the second one is the sound my chickens make when I toss them watermelon scraps, a quiet clucking and cooing which I think is more soothing than the sound of fountain water in a garden.
