Have we damned ourselves to eternal chicken herding/guarding?

[thecreekhouse]

We love our chickens as pets (they all have names!) and would never want to lose any of them, though we understand this is inevitable. However, we are doing our best to keep them safe, protected, healthy, happy and ALIVE for as long as possible. We have four young kiddos who have raised these chicks from 2 days old and are very attached. They would be devastated if anything other than old age were to happen to their babies. We've already lost 1 out of the original 19 and it was pretty rough on the family. We ordered 17 pullets, received 19, one died, and one was a rooster. Weird. So now we have 7 layers as of yesterday, and are waiting on the other 10 to start. We kept the rooster. He's my personal fav!

Anyways, I have reviewed some other threads about free range chickens and chicken herding, but wanted to ask my own questions. We live out in the country with about 2 acres around the house (1 acre open space, 1 acre of forest) and another 59 acres across the road. People speed down our country roads, so we don't let our chickens near them. Sometimes they test us though, which means we have to sit out there with them for hours while they free range. We don't have any fences and don't want to limit them to smaller areas. We also have plenty of birds of prey and red fox, black bear, coyotes, etc around/on the property. So far the main issue would be the bald eagles. I was out during "chicken recess" yesterday when two bald eagles flew about 10 feet off the ground maybe 50 feet from us. They were right over the road that crosses the front of our home and kept going. I yelled at them to make them aware of my presence and stood up out of my chair so they could see me. I didn't see them again, but it's a constant reminder that they're out there and are big enough to pick off our hens. I have read where hawks usually won't mess with fully grown chickens; not sure about owls, but they are normally nocturnal and our chickens are in their coop at night). Our chicks are all 6 months old now and I'll assume nearly fully grown.

So this is the big question: does having chickens in a situation like this mean that either you take some losses, OR you have to sit out there with them at all times to keep them safe? I think many of the farms we have visited don't care as much as we do about chickens, so they have a higher rate of losses and don't seem to mind. I don't know anyone personally who sits with their chickens every time they are out of their coop or run. This seems insane. But we've been doing it for 6 months and so far haven't lost any chickens to predators or cars.

I hope someone has some better ideas. We love our chickens and love spending time with them while they free range. But I feel as if our life has been put on pause or interrupted now that we have to assign a chicken watcher for hours daily, 24/7/365. We won't get rid of our chickens. If this is what we have to do in order to not lose chickens, we're obviously willing to do it. I'm just not sure if there are other/better options out there so we can be indoors or doing other chores instead of constantly following chickens around the yard, making sure we still have 18, and trying to get all of the speeding cars to slow down as they pass so they have time to brake in case a rogue chicken is feeling rebellious or sneaky.

Thank you in advance for any help! We knew pets and farm animals would be a lot of work, but we never thought we'd be sitting out there with them every second while they free range. I don't believe that was in any of the books we were recommended. But again, I think we care for our chickens more than most who might only see them as a meat or egg source, or profit/money-makers.

Unfortunately, with free ranging I actually do think that you either have to be out there yourself or be willing to take the losses. One alternative would be to raise up a true livestock guardian breed dog (a guardian dog rather than a herding dog) who will stay with your chickens whenever they’re free. I’ll be interested to read other responses.

 

[thecreekhouse]

Unfortunately, with free ranging I actually do think that you either have to be out there yourself or be willing to take the losses. One alternative would be to raise up a true livestock guardian breed dog (a guardian dog rather than a herding dog) who will stay with your chickens whenever they’re free. I’ll be interested to read other responses.

Here’s something I wrote about our livestock guardian dog + our chickens.

http://biggoodthing.com/livestock-guardian-dogs-and-chickens/

 

[counterWULF]

Definitely would put some kind of a barrier to prevent your birds from crossing the road to the other area. Speeding cars may swerve to avoid hitting any chicken, which may result in other problems. In addition, depending on your laws wherever you live, could you be responsible for injury/damage to someone trying not to hit your chicken, when you did not contain it/prevent it from crossing the road? I do not know the answer to that.

We are out there with them 100% of the time they are free ranging. We don't own this home/land, so we can't put a fence up, but we are always right on top of the birds anytime they get too close to the road. I work with the neighbors to try and get everyone to slow down when they pass through here, as our acreage is on literally every side of every road at both intersections, so every car is cutting through our property to be on their way to and fro. All I ask is that they slow down and obey speed limits and stop signs. They don't. We've had cars going 60 mph right through the stop sign and across the front of our house. The road's speed limit is 40, but of course it's 0 at a stop sign, not 60. So this is one of the reasons why we are always out with the chickens during chicken recess. The other is the predators, both land and sky. Since posting this thread, we've lost one of our laying hens. We didn't see anything take her, and have yet to find a body. We were out there with her and she just suddenly disappeared. I started a thread about it asking for ideas. We're trying to keep them all safe and allow them to free range. Thanks for your reply!

 

[Mrs. K]

Probably either a fox or a coyote, I have had them sneak in and gone, with a bird just disappearing. Once they find you, they will be back. It can be a very frustrating, challenging time.

A run would be best, but you have to do what you can.

 

[aart]

Hard to control either drivers or chickens.
Well, you could confine the chickens.
Your situation (and/or expectations) is pretty difficult to manage.

We don't own this home/land, so we can't put a fence up

Tposts are not permanent. Depending on the soil they are pretty easy to take back out even without a leverage device...and you can use the fencing clips in a way that they are also easily removed.
I have 100's of feet of fencing up, for 20 years now, where the clips were not bent around the wire(I didn't know they should be-haha!) in most places they are just fine. I have moved and reused many Tposts over the years, but my soil is pretty sandy.