Raising Free Range Chickens in the Backyard

Free-ranging chickens are happy healthy chickens!

However, you can’t just free-range chickens without precautionary measures. You don’t want to lose your garden crops or ruin your flower bed. You also don’t want them laying eggs all over the place or predators getting them.

Here are some tips and chicken run ideas for free-range chickensFree ranging chickens in your backyard

Free Range Chickens Benefits

So long as your vegetables and fruits are protected (see tips below) you can free range chickens in your backyard. There are numerous benefits to allowing them to roam such as:

  • Weed Control
  • Bug Control
  • Reduced Feeding Costs
  • Happier Chickens! They’re able to stretch their legs & use their foraging & scratching skills to enjoy some natural behavior
  • They are truly free-range. Most ‘free range’ eggs from the grocery store have limited to no outdoor space and it’s become a sneaky labeling term

How to Free-Range Your Chickens in the Garden

Tips for Free Ranging Chickens in the Garden

  • It’s better for chickens to free range during the afternoon, after they’ve laid their eggs. Otherwise you’ll be hunting for eggs like it’s Easter!
  • Make sure they have plenty of shade and water access.
  • Protect any baby seedlings or beds that have tasty veggies or fruits in with some chicken wire. I’ve seen people use PVC pipes over beds with chicken wire. By protecting your garden beds, the chickens free range in the paths instead.
Chicken run ideas around the garden
From reclaimgrowsustain.com
  • Fall & Winter is a great time to free-range your chickens.
  • Most of the veggies in the fall or late summer are large and can handle the trampling and scratching.
  • It’s common for seedlings or direct seeded veggies to get scratched up. Because of this, you’ll need to protect the beds or use a chicken tractor.
  • Be sure to make sure your chicken run is predator proof.
  • If you have lots of veggies to protect, use a garden fence to fence off that area of the garden & reserve it for after you’ve harvested. I love chicken garden designs that are sectioned off into 2 or 3 areas. Therefore, you can choose to free range depending on the time of the year.
  • Our chicken coop has 3 rotational chicken runs. Chicken coop & rotational run design around the gardenBelow is an example from a wonderful book ‘Groundbreaking Food Gardens’ by Niki Jabbour.

How to Free-Range Your Chickens in the Garden

  • Fall & Winter is a great time for the chickens to ‘clean house’ and scratch up all the weeds & seeds in the garden.
  • If your garden is too complicated or large to protect from chickens consider building a chicken tractor that you can move around your garden.
  • Supervise them the first few times. It’s common that you missed something and need to protect it.

Good observation allows you to know the chickens are happy & safe.

How to Free-Range Your Chickens in the Garden

How to Keep Free Range Chickens in your Yard

It’s common for chicken coops to be close to the garden or your free range areas. We designed our chicken coop and runs with a 3 pasture rotational system . If you have a fenced yard you can often convince chickens by shaking a grain bucket to follow you to the garden & back to the coop. 

If not a chicken tractor is the best way to move chickens. 

How to Free-Range Your Chickens in the Garden
Source: Fix.com Blog

Have you free ranged chickens in your backyard?

Tips for safely free ranging your chickens

5 thoughts on “Raising Free Range Chickens in the Backyard”

    • It depends on what predator you need protection from. Bears? Only electric fencing will work. We’ve had dogs but they aren’t outside all the time. It depends on the breed, livestock guard dogs (LGD) are popular for homesteads but require training and living outside. We dug out our fencing along the bottom to deter diggers.
      Although not often used, llamas make great acreage guards. If you keep roosters they will try and warn the hens, but don’t offer much protection if a predator is there.

      Reply
  1. Although I have a fairly large run for my chickens – they are 5 months old – I would love to have them free range. The problem is hawks. Anything I can do to protect them from hawks? The other predators such as dogs, coyotes, skunks, raccoons, I’ve found ways to protect the chickens – only hawks. are my problem. I started leaving peanuts for the crows, hoping they would chase hawks, but I imagine if a hawk really wanted a free range chicken, it would find a way. Any thoughts? Thank you!

    Reply

Leave a Comment

shares