[Dans]

OK I'm thinking ahead but from what age can chicks free range?

We accidentally fell into chicks this year. I was going to wait until we were more familiar with chickens but two of our hens went broody.

Our first intention was to have the chicks free ranging as soon as possible. We gave them a supervised outdoor time at about 5 weeks but a few days later one got loose and we found it dead within half an hour (probably went through the fence into the goose area). Then we were thinking let them out 8 weeks when they come off crumb but I read lots of scary things about them having layers pellets too young so kept them in again. They ended up being in until 18 weeks when the girl and Mum went back to the flock and the boys got eaten.

The meat was good and it was good to know where it had come from. And although they had had a good life they hadn't been the free range birds I had thought we would be eating. No running across the garden, sun bathing in spots, clamouring up tree branches etc.

If I need to keep them off the layers pellets until they are 18 odd weeks then I can't bring the boys into my main flock. But I could set up heras panels else where on the holding. Wouldn't be free range but certainly more space.

When do you bring chicks into the flock and when are they big enough to defend themselves?

Dans

Ps I should say that by kept in I mean in a run attached to thier house that was moved once or twice a week depending on the grass.

[Eve]

If you put dishes with chick crumb on the ground and the feeders with layers pellets much higher up out of the chicks' reach they can mix from a young age if the other adult hens aren't nasty towards them. It's ok for adults to eat some chick crumb.

I have a run within a run system (broody coop with run inside much larger general run). As long as the chicks and mum were still going to bed in their broody coop at night, then after they went to bed I put chick feed in their own little run and shut their run door. After they had eaten quite a bit the following day I'd open their little run again and they mingled with the rest of the flock.

Remember to make the heras panels not just fox but also chick proof, it's amazing how small a gap a chick can get through with a bit of sheer dumb luck  I use mesh with 1inch gaps. When chicks get out they can't necessarily find their way back in.

[TracyC]

Very interesting - the organic farm next to us puts theirs out once they are feathered up after a few days!  I've not asked the detail about it as not really thought about it until now.  At home, we keep ours in the same age group and they haven't mingled with other age groups until they got moved due to the bird flu thing.  Even though the youngest are as big, they get massively picked on from the others, so they roost in the rafters and everywhere but where I want them too.  That's another story though.  

[Marches Farmer]

Our chicks stay with the broody until she drifts them at around 7 weeks up - all get chick crumbs.  They then stay in their own coop and run until similar-age groups are consolidated into two groups to go through the Winter.  Here they progress through growers onto layers pellets.  Chicks hatched in the incubator stay indoors under heat for three weeks, then go into a coop and run in a barn, same as the brooded chicks.

[Bramham Wiltshire Horns]

I usually let mine my Nile around 12 weeks if they are going into the flock if not then they go into seperate pen