Chickens: cage attached to barn, rolling cages, or....

[helwen]

... maybe we really should consider rolling cages, or setting up areas around the fruit trees we're planning on putting in this year...

Gene Logsdon's Accidental Peach Crop

... although I still like the cage attached to the barn idea too. That way all the chickens can supplement their diets with grass, grubs, and bugs, and we just cage and move some of them over to the fruit trees now and then.... And no, we _can't_ have free range chickens. While the chickens would be happy enough staying near the house and barn -- easily acquired room and board after all -- we'd lose too many to wild animals. Also, many dogs aren't on leash around here and I don't trust them not to try to have some 'fun' with the chickens.

Range-free works better some places than others. We have weasels, fishers, fox, ermines, and other fun critters.

Comments

[chrisilin.livejournal.com]

If it makes you feel better, there's limited convincing evidence that welfare is actually improved by allowing chickens to be free-range. There's a lot of anthropomorphological stories about it, but most of the research in the field has had mixed results on the 'improvement' of welfare - in part due to predation, but also due to weather, local conditions and the fact that chickens sometimes just aren't smart enough to get the most out of their immediate surroundings . There was one interesting case where farmers spent a great deal of money investing in free-range improvements to their farm only to discover their chickens liked it better indoors!

[helwen.livejournal.com]

It seems to be a mixed bag for results, for sure. Interesting that some of them seem to prefer to be indoors!

Our chickens have freedom within their rooms -- they aren't individually caged with no room to move around and socialize, in other words. They get picked up, petted, talked to, etc., as well.

Here in New England we can't have them outdoors year-round anyway, but part of our thought on the outdoor stuff is that once the initial investment's been made, they can get some of their food for free... with the cost of grain going up, it makes a certain amount of sense.

And of course if they can actually help our trees (and maybe eventually veggies, if I get that far with fencing over the next few years), that would be even cooler. Win-win as it were. They help us and we give them more variety in their diet.

Our hope is that we can keep the eggs at a lower, more affordable price for longer. Of course if we counted in the hours for planting and harvesting the grain... but I'm not too concerned with that. William will likely want to pay for what we manage to provide, so I'm going to find out how much grain costs now and make a note of it for next fall. Not terribly scientific, but I'm not looking to get rich -- and the pay would help us get other stuff, like different types of grain seed to try, etc.

[prince-hring.livejournal.com]

My Dad was vexed with weasels, fishers, ermines, mink, etc. in his bird house until he discovered what he claims is a sure-fire way to protect them from such critters: A single, 25 watt light bulb.

Members of the weasel family hunt in such a way that it only works if the birds cannot see them. A dark hen-house is a buffet for them.

Add a light and then all you have to worry about are foxes, dogs and raccoons.

[calygrey.livejournal.com]

...all...

That leaves a lot of critters, and there's the coyotes, hawks, and skunks, none of which are bothered by a light bulb.

helwen, free range makes a very big difference in taste of the chickens and their eggs. Caged pasture in the summer will come out the same; they've access to lots of bugs, but boy is it a pain in the neck to maintain.

People around here let them run around in the daytime, and lock them up securely at night. You lose extremely few that way.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

People in your area let 160 chickens run around in the daytime and can get them all indoors at night?

[helwen.livejournal.com]

We don't have a problem in the barn -- my reference was specifically to the idea of free range in our area. We definitely have the foxes, dogs, and raccoons (although happily the farm dog could care less about live chickens).