Chickens in the sheep pen

[lovinglife]

We always do a wing clip, only we will clip both sides, and I am sure far shorter than most do. We have never had a problem with this, and it does work, just a pain to catch clip and release.

 

[Four Winds Ranch]

I, as well, let my 50ish chickens free roam! They are in and out of the calf pens, sheep pens, and yes I will admit, even on my front porch at times! They don't seem to bother my garden too much. In the spring during planting and until the garden plants are fair size, I keep the chickens penned up in their run. The run fence is about 9 feet tall and it has no roof. Anyone who escapes, I catch, clip the wings (about an inch of feathers along the wings/both wings) and put them back in the run. Also, my chickens have never wandered too far away! They seem to have an invisible barrier.
I have never had a problem with parasites going from one animal to the other because bird parasites are totally different than other livestock parasites. The bird bugs and worms cannot live on people or other animals. (Unless there has been some new study that I have yet to see)!

 

[Sheepshape]

This is pretty gross, but absolutely true. I found an unfortunate lamb with bad fly strike in the summer....thousands of maggots. We took the poor animal into the shed and hosed, iodine, cleaned etc, until there were maggots everywhereAlong comes one rooster and calls over the hens to join him in the 'feast' he had just found.

The chickens seemed fine after their 'high protein meal' and the lamb went on to make a full recovery.

 

[Alice Acres]

My sheep and free range chickens co-mingle. No problems from either camp.
Less fly problems too, as the chickens go through the bedding of the sheep's area in the barn quite thoroughly.

 

[Cornish Heritage]

From what I understand, it is actually quite beneficial to have diversity of species intermingle.

Very beneficial. Our chickens keep the bugs on the farm WAY down. They clean up chiggers, ticks etc. In fact we moved here we had a horrible problem with lice on the pigs - the chickens have since solved that problem Yes they lay everywhere so it is a kind of treasure hunt each day but the benefits way outweigh the disadvantages.

NOW we did have a problem with the garden in that I could not plant seeds in the ground as the chickens would dig them up. Had to grow the seeds in pots first & then replant them. This winter we are hoping to put HI-Tensile Woven wire around our garden area - not sure if it will stop the chickens or not but hoping so. At least it will keep the kids out as they can be more destructive than the animals, pulling up fresh young onions etc!

Liz

 

[EllieMay]

NOW we did have a problem with the garden in that I could not plant seeds in the ground as the chickens would dig them up. Had to grow the seeds in pots first & then replant them. This winter we are hoping to put HI-Tensile Woven wire around our garden area - not sure if it will stop the chickens or not but hoping so. At least it will keep the kids out as they can be more destructive than the animals, pulling up fresh young onions etc! Liz

We also had to keep the chickens out of the vegetable garden.
We set aside a 50x70' area for our veggies and put electric netting around it.
The netting not only kept the chickens out, it also kept out the rabbits and deer and any other critter that dreamed of a smorgasboard salad bar.

 

[Alice Acres]

We need to do the same (fence of some sort around our veggies) for our chickens. That is really the only negative thing about them being free range that I have.
I'm worried that ours will just fly over (and hubby's argument why he didn't fence it last year...again.)
Mine can easily clear the 4 foot livestock fencing. :/
And they also roost every night up in the rafters of our barn. I hate to start trimming wing feathers, as we don't lose any to predators the way they are now. ahhh, the dilemmas!

 

[EllieMay]

Mine will fly over some fences, too; but for some reason they will not fly over the electric netting surrounding the garden.
I've only had a guinea get trapped inside the garden once the whole year and I had to chase it out.

 

[Alice Acres]

Mine will fly over some fences, too; but for some reason they will not fly over the electric netting surrounding the garden.
I've only had a guinea get trapped inside the garden once the whole year and I had to chase it out.

How tall is your netting, and what did you put it up with for posts?

 

[heatherlynnky]

The flimsy bird netting. Yea mine got caught in it trying to fly over. Ripped the fencing all up. Chicken was fine. Money down the drain. Clipping wings was pretty pointless too. Tried moving everything away from the fences and making taller fences. They still got over. I gave up.

Mine are forever in with the cows and goats. As long as i can keep them out of the cars we are doing good. Even my mom gave up on keeping them out of her planting areas. We no longer have tick issues. Not one misquito bite this year either. Actually almost no bug bites which where we are from seems like a miracle. They do have their place in the big picture but I agree its annoying they won't stay where they should. Its the drawback of free ranging. They tend to go where they want and we just put up with it but despite the risks and annoyance it does make for a happier bird. If they keep bugs down in the sheep pens then thats a plus too.