Free Ranging Chickens

For months now, even through the winter months, we have enjoyed fresh eggs from our chickens.  In return, we provide them with plenty of fresh water and food and greens to eat.

During this time, I've written several blog entries about how we have enlarged their pen.  Starting out with this entry about their first outside pen:

http://windyacresnaturalfarm.blogspot.com/2012/05/temporary-chicken-pen.html

Then this one about how we enlarged it:

http://windyacresnaturalfarm.blogspot.com/2012/08/chicken-pen-extended.html

And finally this one about adding another extension that allowed the chickens entry to our hoophouse:

http://windyacresnaturalfarm.blogspot.com/2012/09/chickens-in-hoophouse.html

We've had to shut them out of the hoophouse this spring until the lettuce we are growing for the farmers' market is finished.  They LOVE lettuce.  And, in the mean time, they have picked their pen clean of all grass, weeds and other green growing stuff!  I got to feeling sorry for them and asked Tom if he thought it would be okay if we let them out of the enclosed area into an adjacent pen that did not have netting over the top.   We decided to try this on a trial basis to see if they would fly over the fence. Granted they cannot fly very high or very far, but they can fly.  Here's the area I'm talking about.

We opened the gate and they tentatively checked out the new area.  Notice all the grass in this new area.  Notice all the bare dirt in their pen.  I am happy to say that they have not tried to fly over the fence.  They tend to travel back and forth between the old pen and the new one.  And, they always return to their inside coop to roost at night.  

So far, no hawks have tried to get them.  That is another reason for the netting over the old pen. It not only keeps them in, but it also keeps predatory birds out!