Despite industrial agriculture’s co-opting and subsequent diminishing of the descriptor “free range”, it is rewarding to be able to describe our chickens as such and mean it. They aren’t limited to a euphemistic “access to the outdoors” — typically a meager chicken run meeting the minimum USDA standard and meant to dupe consumers. Our pullets can roam where they choose in our yard, eat what they like, and defend themselves (or not) as needed from the wild animals that share their space.
They can be chickens, every day.
So far, they use their new-found liberty to scratch and peck from morning to evening in an unrelenting march about the yard. They are particularly fond of the compost piles, perhaps having longed for these stacks of edible refuse that sat just out of reach for as long as they can remember. They spend half their time there, as I’d hoped, fertilizing and turning the piles in exchange for the bugs and scraps they get to eat.
Bailey (Rhode Island Red), Seven (Barred Rock), and Justin (Buff Orpington) cruise together, with Kate (Dominique) almost always on her own. It’s not clear by whose design this is, but I find it hard to believe either party would exclude the other as a result of Kate being added to the flock a week after the others. She is also one week younger. But the disconnect is hard to disregard. At least they get along like acquaintances, if not sisters.
In exploring the yard, they’ll peck anything once: grass, sandal, flower, cement. They don’t seem opposed to eating the spiny, mature growth on our squash plants, unfortunately, so they’ll have to be kept away from most of the vegetables, even if they do ultimately turn havoc in the garden into eggs. Their powerful scratching — the yard at the end of the first day of ranging looked like it had been hit by a hundred tiny tornadoes — also poses a problem for delicate or shallow-rooted plants, as many edibles are.
However, we could hardly confine them any longer. Though our coop is sized with the requisite four square feet of floor space and 10 inches of roost per bird, we would have built it bigger if our intent was to always keep them in. As it was clear when they needed to move from the brooder to the coop at six weeks, it was clear they needed to range at 20. They’re big, and they look bigger, more real for some reason as they trot, scratch, and peck across our view out the back door, and add their clucks to our morning breakfast — providing a novel, yet natural backdrop to our every day.
I’ve spent the last few minutes pondering what “as long as they can remember” means to your chickens. I keep thinking of the line that the Wild Animal Park trainers had about the emu during the bird show-that everyday she met new friends because each day she woke up and had no memory of the day before. Like 50 First Dates, with the Drew Barrymore character played by a 6′ tall feathered woman with surprisingly sharp talons.
Anyway, that’s what your post brought to mind.
Paul, you picked up on the subtext of this post perfectly. The whole thing was really just an allusion to “50 First Dates”.
Our girls can’t range outside full time, as our predators are bold and numerous, and could easily wipe out an unsupervised flock in a single afternoon. They’re not hurting for space though. However, like yours, when they’re out and about, they’re clearly very happy being…chickens. As we now (accidentally) have two roosters, we’re hoping we’ll be able to leave some of the flock- defense to them, and leave the girls out more. We’ll have to see how that works out. Congrats on the ‘practice’ eggs too!
I think the 50 First Dates references are too much. It’s like, come on, again?