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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2015 16:38:37 GMT
Anyone do pastured poultry? Like a really large fenced area? What kind of fencing do you use?
I'm considering that to keep the chickens out of the garden I need to fence them out of the garden, or into their own pasture. Currently they are free range.
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Post by Awnry Abe on May 21, 2015 17:15:06 GMT
I use non-electrified electro-netting to keep both dogs and chickens out of the garden. On the plus side, it works and I only have to have it out from the moment I plant til the harvest is over. On the minus side, I have to place it in growing lawn, so it is a pain in the behind come mowing time.
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Post by Awnry Abe on May 21, 2015 17:18:09 GMT
Also, distance is also a help. Our chickens are free-range from a fixed coop. They do not range much further than the our garden. If it weren't for the dogs, I could have gotten away with no fence at all by barely moving the garden.
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Post by Deleted on May 21, 2015 17:26:20 GMT
Our chickens seem to range quite widely, although I've not seen them crossing the road yet.
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Post by bergere on May 22, 2015 10:50:45 GMT
My hens are running around the house and two of the most close pastures... close to 5 acres in total. I am using Cattle panels and predator rated hot wire. They will go through the fencing where the Hot wire isn't. They free range during the day but are locked up at night, so we can get some un-worried sleep. Like Redfish, I fence them out of the garden.. its not pretty but it works. You can see the kind of fencing and the hot wire... it is low enough, chicken would zap itself but good, if it tried to go through. This area I want them to pop through the fence so the hot wire is higher up. Have a lot of loose hunting dogs in this area, along with a lot of skunks, Foxes and so on. So I need to have good fencing, to keep them from all being killed when they free range.
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Post by Wendy on May 22, 2015 10:59:15 GMT
Have you thought of using a chicken tractor? I have my broilers in tractors. My layers free range, but hardly ever come into the yard. Their coop opens out the back into the pasture & that's usually where they stay.
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Post by WindyRidge on May 22, 2015 12:35:35 GMT
We use a single strand of electric to keep them out of the garden. Keep it around 8" high so they can't go under, and we've yet to have them go over even though it's so low. For that to work you have to use a continuous charger though, not a pulsing one. If it keeps them out it would likely keep them in. It would be cheap to set up on a large scale and easy to move too if you used those poly posts, but would require maintenance to keep such a low fence line clear so the electric doesn't ground out.
Other than keeping them out of the garden I'm lucky enough to be able to free range mine without any trouble. We have a couple dogs that run loose and that must be enough to keep the predators away - I haven't had any predator chicken losses since I started keeping chickens (save one incident with pullets and a stupid giant Tom cat).
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Post by Deleted on May 22, 2015 14:03:59 GMT
Have you thought of using a chicken tractor? I have my broilers in tractors. My layers free range, but hardly ever come into the yard. Their coop opens out the back into the pasture & that's usually where they stay. We do the same, chicken tractor for meat birds and other young birds, free range for adult layers. I have a pile of wood standing by for my next chicken tractor whenever I get the time to put it together. Last year's tractor didn't overwinter very well. New one is going to disassemble so I can stash it in the secondary loft for the winter. (The secondary loft is not accessible via the hay elevator, so is mostly unused.) The plan this year is to put our meat birds and replacement layers and roosters in the same tractor, then separate them out on butcher day. Last year the birds we kept went into a barn stall until they were mature enough to hop over the wall.
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Post by manygoatsnmore on May 23, 2015 4:14:42 GMT
Duplicate post - weird!
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Post by manygoatsnmore on May 23, 2015 4:15:30 GMT
Bergere, what breed is that hen?
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Post by bergere on May 23, 2015 10:07:00 GMT
Its a Blue Copper Marans, from Chicken Scratch Poultry. She is now supper broody and has hatched out one batch of chicks for me already and now on the Full sized Wheaten Ameraucana eggs.
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Post by aoconnor on May 23, 2015 16:56:21 GMT
Its a Blue Copper Marans, from Chicken Scratch Poultry. She is now supper broody and has hatched out one batch of chicks for me already and now on the Full sized Wheaten Ameraucana eggs. bergere, She is lovely! I would fence the garden rather than the pasture.
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Post by bergere on May 23, 2015 19:58:39 GMT
I fence everything... LOL Less stressful for me. Thank you Connor.
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Post by Deleted on May 23, 2015 21:31:17 GMT
Expenses are stressful too...
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Post by bergere on May 23, 2015 22:18:05 GMT
Yes, very true that. Have that is spades here.
Saying that... having packs of loose hunting dogs, taking out your poultry and other animals... also cost a lot of $$$$$ and lots of stress.
Getting to old, to run out, specially in the middle of the night, in your night gown, and a loaded shot gun, to get what ever is after your livestock.
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Post by manygoatsnmore on May 23, 2015 23:51:17 GMT
Bergere, what breed is that hen? Gosh, she's pretty!
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