It just hasn't worked. I know it sounds (and looks) lovely and idyllic to think of chickens clucking about a farmyard happily, doing the chicken thang, all happy and healthy etc. etc.
But it didn't work for us. We've given it two years, and we've struggled to get vegetables growing. The fencing got higher and higher, and in the end I just gave up, because the chooks got into everything. Ate everything. Destroyed everything.
Our flowers got eaten within minutes of going in the ground. Our veggies went the same way. Our lettuces were barricaded with chook wire and mesh, and it was the only way we managed to grow anything.
The strawberries were stripped, and then the leaves eaten - all that was left of them were the roots. Then the chooks dug up the roots and ate them too.
We tried leaving the chooks in the coop, and just going in to feed them. But our chicken coop has a human-sized door, and every time I went in, the chooks go out. They're sneaky little buggers! So that didn't work.
After two years, I have come to the conclusion that if we're going to be serious about growing our own food (which we are), and have anything besides fruit trees, sheep and chickens, we need to contain the chooks in their coop and run. The simply can't free range any more.
What looks good in theory doesn't necessarily work in practice
What looks and sounds good in theory doesn't necessarily work in practice, we've found. I'd say we're starting to be pretty seasoned farmers now. I'm a girlie who can haul an 80 kilogram (180 pound) sheep around and not think anything of it.
I've castrated ram lambs and watched the kill guy load his gun and shoot, then gut and skin, lambs that I saw raised from birth. Yeah, I'm a farmer all right. And I love it. This is what I was born to do.
So when I say it's a tough decision to have to say no to free-ranging, I mean it. But it just isn't working. As much as I adore the animal side of farming (and now we're thinking of getting pigs in!), I want a veggie garden too. And I just can't do that with chickens destroying everything I want to do.
So, sorry chickens. It's cage time for you. I'll make sure the run is good and large, and give them plenty of space. But their days of free ranging in the sun are just about over.
I've got farming to do.
Have a lovely day!
17 comments:
Ours reached a similar decision some time back. Free range is for winter only when nothing is planted and you want the vege garden cleared and dug over.
viv
Hi Viv - Yes, I've talked to a fair number of farming friends around here in Mosgiel and Wingatui.
Same thing. You either have a garden / veggie plot or you have free range hens. The two don't work together.
We're going to build a chicken tractor, so we can move chooks around the garden and let them dig over plots when we want them to, but no more free ranging. Our hens have it good, and with the extra run space we'll be adding, they'll have plenty of room to move about, certainly not cramped.
There is 'free range' and 'free range'.
As long as they have a large run (outdoors) they can be called free range.
I wouldn't dream of having them in the flower beds and veg plots. My mother used tolet them roam all over the garden, but at a certain point she had to restrict their roaming too.
Now, my chooks escape from time to time into the woodland bordering our property and they love it so much, so I let them. :)
I have been wondering the same thing, but have to take into account my feed bill, which will go up. I have my chickens free ranging all day, they water them selfs from the spring,so a job a I don't do. I feed none on a rainy day, because worms are coming out everywhere. I do lose some plants that are on the side they range but i think I will just move them to the other side of the house they don't go to, I'm just not sure yet,but I understand why people don't.
You have no reason to feel guilty, you're committed to giving your chickens a good life with room to run around, scratch the ground, flap their wings etc - which is a lot more than many other poor chickens in this world. How free range is free range anyway? When I buy free range eggs, I don't expect the chicken had been able to roam all over the countryside. It must have been confined by some sort of fencing or run.
I have fought with Pop for 30+ years over his dogs and chickens destroying my flowers and garden. I think it's time I threw in the towel and stick with my crafts. I've decided to let the chickens and dogs have the yard and garden.
I totally with the chook tractor method and the mandala method with a geodesic chook dome. Chooks are awesome at digging over soil and removing weeds, roots and remains. Use their best talents, then keep them contained.
Have a two-sided coop so you can have the chooks a fortnight in one side and add cuttings to the other, then let them in the other side, cleaning out new compost and manure from the spent side. Plant grain crops along the fence that the chooks will love - a different grain each side for variety. Enjoy your new controlled chooky life. <3
Ours have a 3m x 3m mini run of which 2m x 2m is enclosed with roosts and nesting boxes so that if we ever need to catch them they cannot go too far, then they have a fenced off run that is 6m x 14 m where we have planted a few shrubs and trees for them. Very occassionally we let them out further but not often. Even then I let them out at 4 in the afternoon and they go back in happily at dinner time when I go out with the grain.
Hi Patricia - Ours have quite a big chook pen anyway (about 20 ft x 10 ft) and we've decided to build a chicken tractor for them instead of extending a permanent run.
So it's on with a build now. At the moment I'm sourcing plans, and the toss up is between a dome, an a-frame, and a simple box frame on wheels.
I was going to go the dome, until I worked out the materials cost, and got an almighty shock! So at present the a-frame design seems to be winning.
We'll be putting a hatch door into the chook pen so the tractor can be lined up for easy moving of chooks into the tractor. My skills with carpentry aren't great, but I'm lucky to have friends I can call on for help!
Hi Blackberry Brambles - We just can't have the free ranging any more.
One of this year's jobs is establishing big vegie plots and landscaping (a lot of it with major works) and chickens digging everything up just doesn't work with the ideas I have in mind, whereas tractored chickens will work very well.
Now it's just a matter of finding a great design for a chicken tractor, and building it - alogn with the 3 million other things I have to do!
Hi Stitchybritt - Good points. And in the end, it's about looking after our animals that is most important.
For example, if I were buying eggs I wouldn't want to support a farmer who was "free ranging" their chickens but didn't look after them, keep them safe from predators etc. A name can mean little sometimes.
Thansk for the common sense :)
Hi Sawn48 - Sometimes some battles aren't worth fighting. I'm not a good judge of that a lot of the time!
Maybe if you want to grow things why not get into berries or some similar plants / fruit that can be grown in cages, so the chooks can't / won't get in and destroy them?
But yeah, some things are not worth fighting over!
Hi Vivienne - Yep - we're going with a chook tractor. I actually had pretty much decided on a chook dome, then costed the materials and decided against it - it was going to be pohibitively expensive, with a cost of nearly $300 in chicken wire alone, plus another $240 for the framework.
A dome actually has quite a lot of surface area which chooks don't need, as they can't fly. So now we're looking at a-frame and box frame plans instead, which will be cheaper to build (about 1/3rd to 1/2 the cost) and just as effective.
But yes, chook tractors are great for moving chooks around the property, so we're going in that direction. I'll be blogging whatever design we decide to go with, and show the finished product!
Hi Fiona - That's what we were doing - keeping them in until the afternoon, then once they'd laid letting them out.
But opening the door also resulted in a problem of our smaller lambs getting into the chook pen and stealing the chicken food - way too expensive to continue!
At present, we've set up the chicken coop so the lambs can't get in (and they've grown a bit!) but the ranging is definitely over, and a tractor is the way to go for us now.
The chicken tractors work for us, and we let them out in the afternoon (as my vege garden is very well fenced). It is disappointing when they decide to scratch up something that I've planted outside the garden (I'm a slow learner at times!). I like the Joel Salatin method of following lifestock with chicken tractors, they rake through the manure and pick out the bugs, we've seen massive improvements in our pasture using the tractors. And I'm sure it saves on feed costs. The main thing is you find the best solution for your farm. Keep in mind that a pen can look huge, but it doesn't take the chooks long to eat everything green and end up in a dust bowl (as in our previous pen situation). Cheers, Liz
Hi Liz - Yea, I'm going with tractors. The next thing for me is to find a design that works for us, and is affordable as well as low-rise, because it gets quite windy here at times, so we want something that won't blow off down the hill!
I'm thinking I need to do a carpentry course, in my Copious Spare Time[TM] ;-)
let's see some pictures of these tractor devices.
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