When we moved from our 2-acre lifestyle block to a small suburban property near the middle of town, I knew there was a no way I could let my chickens free-range there – not only is it against the town bylaws, in no time at all they would be squished on the road, attacked by a roaming dog, or end up in someone’s dinner pot. But I still wanted my chickens to enjoy scratching for bugs, eating fresh greenery, and having the choice of leafy shade when they wanted it.
I’ve tried various ways of providing my chickens with a substitute for free range. My initial idea was that I could use their 60 square metre “range” area like ‘break-feeding’ stock – giving the chickens access to one part of it for a while, then closing that area off and allowing the vegetation to regrow before circling the chickens back there again. But I found that even though the greenery had been well-established before the chickens got access, within days of letting chickens into a lushly planted area they had munched the lot, while it takes weeks or months to regenerate the plants. The chickens pecked and scratched and completely cleared the ground much faster than anything could re-grow.
What I found successful was fencing off the edges of the chickens’ open-air area and planting those edges with leafy greens and edible flowers. The chickens can peck the leaves without scratching up the roots. It’s kind of like a variation of my first small pecking garden as described here:
But the fences do need to be strong, or a heavy chicken will push them over. And also vertical rather than sloped, or the chickens will use the fence like a ladder.
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33 Comments
What do you use in your chicken run?
There fun to watch
This did give me a couple of great ideas! Thanks for sharing!
What breed of chickens are they, they are beautiful.
A charming and interesting video. Thank you.
I really enjoyed watching this.
I enjoyed this video very much! Great stuff!
Thank you
Greetings from Ireland ☘
☘
Nice!
Love it. Thank you for sharing your experience.
I love your programmes. Always a delight to watch. Also, always very informative. Your visuals are always colourful. And, last but by no means least, I love your colourful variety of chickens.
Sincerely,
Larry Clarence Lewis
London, Ontario, Canada.
im glad to see none of the chickens heads got stuck in the fence!
I have to ask, are they "Exchequer Leghorns" (6.24) Great egg layers.🥰
Beautiful i like it your idea
all my chickens are still birds and prefer to live in the trees 🙂 They are not really roaming birds like fowl so a tree is a perfect hen house 🙂
Hi, how tall is your fence? It’s not covered from predators or them flying over? Do you clip their wings? Thank you from Texas
fascinating experiment! thank you for sharing it with us.
My first chicken year i free ranged my chickens in my yard. Only three. They ate everything. Now they have a yard.
My entire yard is`nt even 60m2, sadly. I do grow sprouts for my 4 hens and nasturtium, caalendula, borage and sunflowers in a small flowerbed where they get to "free" range. I also swap out flowerpots that I sow chick feed in and rotate them to let them grow back.
Great video. Would love to have chickens on my site, within a moving 'chicken tractor' system, and it's interesting to see the timing of the moves that may be needed to allow regrowth of vegetation. Good to see some NZ content too!
Great work
My chickens love tomatoes and zucchini. I often toss excess to them. They also like melons (rind and seeds). I often pull dandelion leaves, comfrey leaves, plantain and thistle leaves for my chickens. It's a treat for them 🙂
These are great ideas. Thank you. We are in a very high predation area. Northeast corner of San Diego county.
Thank you miss you have blessed me
Thank you sharing this ❤
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I've never seen that technique before, thanks for sharing! I'm going to try something similar.
Thank you so much! Really helpful! 😃
Where is the chicken shit
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Very Good , Thanks for this , very informative 🐓
Very Novel. I'd NEVER Ever seen Anybody work the concept of a "Pecking Garden*
Thank you for this informative video 👏👏
I am starting my own food forest journey this year and working towards having a chicken run on the property. This video is very helpful. I think I will adopt this concept. 😊
Looks like stopping them from scratching the plants to death really makes it more sustainable. Appreciate you sharing your experience.