Mass breakout!

I

Icemaiden

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For the last couple of days there have been signs of digging around my run, but from the inside...
Having spent their whole life (bar the last 2 weeks) in an enriched cage, my girls seem to have decided that a 7m x 4m run & greenhouse aren't enough any more :? . This morning they staged a mass break-out. I was planning on giving them their first experience of free ranging late one afternoon, shortly before bed & when I was confident that they'd come back if I shook a container of corn, but my girls had other ideas. As I opened the door to leave, after feeding them & cleaning out their run, they legged it!

After a few minutes I managed to co-erce Millie & 2 of the ex-batts back in to the run with the rattle of a tub of layers pellets & a handful thrown on the ground inside the run, but Varta, bottom of the pecking order & the only hen who won't let me pick her up, was intent on making the most of the chance to eat bugs without having them taken off her. No trail of pellets leading to the door of the run was going to win her over!

Eventually I had to leave her, the others safely shut into the run, & go back to the house for some corn to bribe her with. I'm not sure whether it was the corn or thinking that she'd been abandoned on her own, but when I came back up the garden with the corn, she actually ran towards me (for the first time - cute) & I was able to pick her up before she legged it again!

I guess I'd better fill the gaps between our hedge & the ground before I go into the run tomorrow, in case they disappear into the field next door... :-)07
 
A sweet story Icemaiden. Varta was clearly lost and lonely outside on her own and recognised you as a source of security and companionship. So a bond has been created.

Two of our chicks escaped this week and were immediately overwhelmed by the great outside. They approached me and let me pick them up and put them back into the shed. No struggling or complaining at all.
 
Does the bottom of your run just sit on the ground, Icemaiden? The problem might be that, if they can dig their way out, Somebody Else might dig his way in .........
I'm glad they're enjoying their new life t the full, anyway.
 
I'd worry too that if they can dig out, the ground must be very soft which would leave them very vulnerable to a fox or other predator.
 
Around the edge of their run, the wire netting comes down to ground level & is then folded flat on the ground outside the run, held down by 60cm square patio slabs. So it'll take a fair amount of digging before either the hens get out or anything else gets in. It just seems ironic that they're trying to dig their way out when the run's only there to protect them!

Hopefully they'll never find out why they need protecting... though the fencing did protect their food from 7 hungry hen pheasants this afternoon. Not sure what the chooks made of them; lucky for the pheasants that I'm vegetarian :-)02
 
Chuck said:
Misread - they didn't dig themselves out !
Click to expand...

Yes, me too - I've got one, a Leghorn, who is a Houdini at escaping between my legs when I try to leave the run with the muck bucket in one hand and the egg box in the other! Glad to hear yours are such fast learners..
 
One of mine jumped into the muck bucket the other day as Iwas fighting my way in !
 
When I went up to the run a couple of nights ago by torchlight to take the flowerpot out of the nestbox, I discovered the real culprit behind the digging inside the run - a brown, furry gatecrasher with a long tail. On closer inspection the next morning, it'd chewed it's way in through the wire mesh & then started trying to dig tunnels back out again, under the slabs. One tunnel went right under the patio slabs & appeared on the outside.

Today I've reinforced the spot where the hole was & filled up the tunnels with rolled up leftovers of chicken wire. Tomorrow I'd better buy a chicken-proof rat trap; any recommendations? (Obviously I don't want to poison the hens, & I'd rather not kill the local rabbits or hedgehogs either.)

I guess it's only a matter of time before it & its friends chew more holes through the wire mesh :cry:

On a happier note, the girls had their first official free range this afternoon. I let them out about an hour before bed time, having filled the biggest & closest gaps between our garden & the field next door with more chicken wire offcuts. After foraging for about half an hour, two of them wandered back into the run to the feeder, & not long after the other two followed them in. I rewarded them with corn & mealworms. Happy :D
 
If its big enough buy a rabbit trap Icemaiden. Has a soft closing door. So you have to bait it and despatch.
 
What sort of mesh is the run made from, Icemaiden? You may need to reinforce it all round, at least with one strip of mesh wired on over the lower part, or the chewing problem will recur for sure, even if you catch this rat. It will be worth getting small gauge mesh if you do this, as the 0.5 inch square type will exclude vermin and also is too small for predators to get their teeth into in the first place.
 
Unusual for a rat to chew through wire unless it's perished though they will chew through the soft wood of a cheap coop in a matter of hours and will certainly tunnel under. If a rat can chew through, a fox certainly will.
 
The wire that I used was the hot dip galvanised steel, 0.7mm diameter & 13mm hole, N3 on the http://www.hillsofdevon.co.uk/netting.html website (not sure if the clicky link will work...).
I guessed that it wouldn't keep mice out but was hoping that it'd keep rats & foxes out :-)11
 
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