The day we said goodbye to free ranging! 😕

[EmmaDonovan]

Bless your heart ! I wouldn't turn mine loose either! Poor chicken wouldn't last 5 minutes !

Everything in the desert wants to poke, bite, sting, or eat you. Bleh.

There's a hatchery just outside of Phoenix, Arizona, that has an interesting take on predators and free-ranging.

They bought hens and roosters of thirteen different standard breeds and turned them all loose on ten acres of unfenced Sonoran desert.

Eight years later they have a flock of hundreds of chickens that are predator-wise, heat-hardy, and excellent foragers. They're all mixed breeds of course which the hatchery collectively calls "polymorphic desert fowl."

So it is possible to have a flock of free-ranging chickens in the desert if you have sufficient land, time, and numbers. Our little backyard flock, however, will remain in an enclosure.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Everything in the desert wants to poke, bite, sting, or eat you. Bleh.

There's a hatchery just outside of Phoenix, Arizona, that has an interesting take on predators and free-ranging.

They bought hens and roosters of thirteen different standard breeds and turned them all loose on ten acres of unfenced Sonoran desert.

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Eight years they have a flock of hundreds who are predator-wise, heat-hardy, and excellent foragers. They're all mixed breeds of course which the hatchery collectively calls "polymorphic desert fowl."

So it is possible to have a flock of free-ranging chickens in the desert if you have sufficient land, time, and numbers. Our little backyard flock, however, will remain in an enclosure.

Lol. In my mind's eye I can see chickens perched on top of those saguaro cactus, like hawks and bobcats, scoping around the desert.

 

[EmmaDonovan]

Lol. In my mind's eye I can see chickens perched on top of those saguaro cactus, like hawks and bobcats, scoping around the desert.

I'm always amazed bobcats can do that. It gives me the heebie-jeebies looking at one atop all those cactus spines!

 

[FlockVillemaire]

I'm always amazed bobcats can do that. It gives me the heebie-jeebies looking at one atop all those cactus spines!

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