Keeping Chickens

Chicken run blooming fast as we discovered when we had our first escape attempt. Well, it wasn’t really a escape attempt, but Mrs Chicken can definitely run like the clappers when you try to catch her.

Chicken on the wrong side of the chicken run!

It’s funny as the chicken didn’t try and run off or escape from the garden, she just stayed close to the chicken house and the other chickens in their ‘official’ chicken run underneath the coop.

As you may remember, since my earlier post on Chicken Poo, we decided that the chicken house that we bought - although fine as a sleeping area, needs a larger chicken run. We’re therefore planning on building a permanent larger chicken run at the end of the garden.

For now, we’ve increased the chicken run area by using some wire fencing and netting over the top. We move the chicken house daily due to the chicken poo problem - to stop the patch of ground underneath the chicken enclosure going ‘bad’.

We then open the door to their chicken house and let them have free range in the additional chicken run ‘extension’ area that we’ve created for them.

Chicken Running Away

Now, Mrs Chicken is a intellegent bird. She’s worked out how to escape and she can often be found outside the ‘legal’ chicken run, having a illegal feast on anything else she can find in the garden.

The other chickens are slightly jealous and try to escape themselves. We’ve only so far had one occasion of having more than one chicken running about the garden - ’free range’ so to speak!

Not that I’m against the idea of giving them the whole garden to range about in, but due to the post the other day about Mr Fox, I’m a little concerned about the possibilty of him helping himself to a free range meal!

The other problem is Pip the dog. He sticks his nose in the chicken run and gets a good peck, but I reckon he has ideas of helping himself to fresh chicken if the opportunity arises.

No wonder they used a chicken for fitness training on the first Rocky film - chasing a chicken round the garden is a really good workout. The chicken runs off as soon as you get too near, but we’ve discovered a secret weapon… Corn!

We throw a few down and then put the rest in the chicken house. When Mrs chicken eats what she’s been given, we sort of make a corn trail right up to the wire fence and hold it up in the air.

Thinking only of her tummy, Mrs Chicken then goes back in the official chicken run with little fuss.

So there you have it, if you want a good workout run after a chicken!