Keeping chickens in a run full time?

[MotherQueenXeno]

Just wondered if any of you do this as oppose to letting your chickens free range in your garden? If so, how many chickens and how much run space do they have? Thanks!

Oh yes one good point is that they need shade.

Our coop is up on stilts. That's v important as it creates a shady area underneath where they snooze during the day.

Also don't produce more eggs than you can handle. We have friends who have 4 hens and they get 28 eggs a week and are basically supplying all the neighbours as they couldn't possibly eat that much. It can cause a bit of egg disposal stress!

2 hens will give you 14 eggs a week and honestly that's more than enough for most families.

That's an amazing amount of eggs, wow. I wonder what breed of chickens they are? I bet the neighbours are happy with the free eggs anyway.

One reason I am not keen on free range is a freinds chickens all got killed free ranging in her garden by what she thought was a cat, but after the posts on this thread I am now thinking it must have been a fox that got them all.

I honestly would say the amount of space you can give them the better, these tiny rims with omlet chicken coops are not big enough, ours are free range and rural, never lost one to a fox yet. They keep slug and snail populations down and anything we don’t want them to nibble at is covered/fenced or in pots that are higher up. They come and tap at the back door for breakfast and are extremely sociable/friendly. Chickens do need space and it’s humane to give them that.

@mklanch has a good point. What breeds will you have and why?

If solely eggs then some nice hardy hybrids are good but I love my fancy chooks. I only keep bantams, they lay but don't eat as much. I find fluffy footed breeds don't dig as much but do get very muddy in the wet. I have a bantam Langshan who is by far MVP of my four hens. She is friendly and lays lots of eggs, just not in winter. The Silkie is useless! She sits in the rain like an idiot and then has to be blow dried

You blow dry a silkie?! That's amazing and I am very jealous. We have silkie chicks at my school currently and they are just the most adorable bundles of fluff.

If I got chickens it would be hybrids, the ones that are for sale around me are called things like ISA Brown, Light Sussex, Rhode Rock, Columbian Blacktail. Hardy and prolific egg layers as far as I understand.

Silkies are gorgeous bit lack any waterproofing. So I dry her for her comfort, she seems to quite enjoy it and the pom poms trim as she can't see without quite a severe mohawk.

Isa brown will lay eggs very well bit all hens take a hiatus over winter do be prepared

Never get just 2 - they need company and if one dies your other will be miserable. 3 as a minimum.

Ours have an eglu cube with 3m run they are shut in overnight, and a 3m by 8m outside run with netting across the top to keep the wild birds out. That’s got a dirt bath, some shrubs for shade and wood piles for recreation.

When they free-range across the garden, they eat all the flowers and strip the veg patch bare - I love them but they are feathery vandals!

Warrens/ISABrowns are my top recommendation for beginners. They are incredibly docile and friendly, easily tamed, not as flighty as some. Light Sussex can be a little flighty, but pretty good. Columbian Blacktails, Speckledy, and the assorted “Rhode” or “Rock” hybrids are all good although not as immediately friendly as a Warren.

For a robust and long-lived hen, the mixed use breed Bluebelle is wonderful. Big heavy bodied bird with smoke-grey plumage. They can beat up a cat in no time (very handy!) and live to be 8-10.

My cats are terrified of chickens so unlikely to be a problem!

Our enclosure is 12ftx12ft and they are on wood chip after they muddied the grass, but we're going to get some temporary fencing that we can move around so they will eventually have an area roughly 40ft x20ft during the daytime (4 hens and one cockerel).

When I had a light Sussex she was too big and heavy to be flighty but she did go broody all the time which was a pain.

We get 7 eggs a day at the moment, but I eat a lot of eggs and I freeze them for over the winter as well. We give away the odd few but we're not overwhelmed at all.

We have Swedish Flowers, Silkies and two unknown cross breeds. They're all very tame at this stage, even the (bantam Silkie) rooster will sit on your lap and go to sleep for half an hour or so (after that he gets angsty and wants to get back to his hens).

I never knew you could freeze eggs!

As suggested no less than three. Honestly I wouldn't just confine chickens to a run unless it was massive. The joy they have in free ranging is hard to mimic. You'd need to prepare for avian flu as suggested and note that some breeds like silkies are susceptible to being bullied and are very broody which can be a nightmare to manage. I have three in an omlet cube and 3x 2 run which is on two levels. They freerange most days.

We used to have a Golden top silkie and she was a nightmare for going broody, and never really fitted into the flock. We currently have three Light Sussex who are lovely big girls and not flighty at all (though one of them has ishoos), a Welbar (huge and gorgeous but very demanding on the biscuit front and thinks she can march inside and sit on the sofa), a Golden Legbar (lovely eggs but evil), and a Welsummer (who is 9, and a totally beautiful hen)

It's great to read about everyone's chickens, and it seems I may be able to re think letting them out if cats aren't an issue. I still can't think how my freinds chickens were killed in the middle of the day though? Surely a fox wouldn't come into a garden in daylight and kill them? We live in a suburban area sandwiched between a city and countryside so foxes must be around but I assumed they only came out at night.

NeedNewKnees Thank you for the excellent breed advice. Top of my list would be decent egg production and friendliness so the Warren sounds great. The farm near me sells Lohman brown, I think that is the same breed. I met a Buff Orphington at the weekend, so cute,so big, wish I had more space!

I think it’s much, much more likely to be a fox. They get very daring, especially when there’s a shortage of food.

Yes in some areas foxes are brave and will attack during the day.
Getting a sense of how foxy your area is is vital. It’s very variable. They tend to be braver in towns.
In my old village the chickens were out all the time and I never saw a trace of a fox, possibly because all the gardens around us had dogs. In my current town I have found fox poo near the chicken area on one occasion. I don’t think they are at risk during the day but I wouldn’t leave them out at night - you would probably get lucky if it was a one off but clearly we are within a fox’s occasional range.
I have friends in cities who have foxes happily sunbathing in their gardens during the day and obviously in that situation you would have no alternative to a fox proof run full time, lovely as it is to let them range.

We have a couple of silkies and they are kept in a run with a co-op which is up a ladder to protect them from foxes. We have woodchip on the floor from FlytesoFancy and put powder on it to stop germs. Our cat just looks at them and I think would run away if they approached her.

The silkies are often next to each other snuggled up together. I would imagine they would like to free range but one is quite jumpy. They also aren't supposed to get wet or they can die so the run is good as we can put a cover over it. When we lived in London two of our friends had rabbits killed by foxes in the day in daylight, the urban foxes especially can be very fearless. We live in a village now so its a bit borderline for free range, not seen a fox here (in London I would see them all the time) but there's a big hole under our fence dug by something.

Cats won't bother them but we had foxes come even in the middle of the day. So when we had chickens we only let them out of the run when we were in the garden too. They did have a very big caged area though, not really a run it was about 2 meters by 3 meters was about 2meters tall.

We have 22 chickens and they roam all over the garden and our fields until about 18.00 when I call them all back, feed them and put them in the barn for the night.

Were perhaps lucky that we have land.

They are obviously all happy and healthy.

Love them 😍

Never had an issue with foxes during the day but we have a Dalmatian and a Staffie that wander alot so maybe that deters the foxes?

@dalmatianmad

Never had an issue with foxes during the day but we have a Dalmatian and a Staffie that wander alot so maybe that deters the foxes?

A dog definitely deters foxes! My neighbour’s dog chases them off.

Visiting in the day can be common in some areas. Foxes aren’t purely nocturnal, they just operated like that around humans because it’s safer. We had a very bold dog fox who used to hide under our trampoline watching the hens and hoping we’d go inside. We had to be very vigilant that year!

Re: Light Sussex. Over the years I’ve had 12 of them and about a third we’re flighty. It’s not a major issue with the breed but it figures more for them that Warrens or Black Rocks.

If you really want to treat yourself get a Rhode Island Red - the sunshine on those deep brick-red feathers is gorgeous.

I don’t rate silkies because they are extremely broody (and stop laying) and don’t suit my rainy garden. They are too light-bodied and fluffy so catch fatal chills easily. 😣 Lesson learnt!

I often see a fox strolling around in the middle of the day. On occasion I have seen one running off with a neighbour's chicken in it's mouth. I have a photo of one sunbathing in horses field that didn't run off when I turned out my horse who promptly wandered over to sniff it. It then casually walked over to the neighbour's garden to check out his chicken run.

One of ours is a Rhodes Island Red.

Pros: have no fear of humans and will let you pet them. They're like cats.

Cons: Can bully more passive breeds. Need to be top of the pecking order.

But then the more skittish breeds might not let you pet them, and it is lovely for kids to be able to stroke a hen.

If getting three, is it best to get three of the same breed or does it not really matter? I am guessing some breeds are more compatible than others