Julia, J.Lo, Fanny, and Coco in the Garden
My hens are so excited to share with you a new exciting book just released, Free-Range Chicken Gardens by Jessi Bloom. I met Jessi last July in Seattle at a national garden bloggers conference, Seattle Fling, when Jessi was just completing this book.
Jessi Bloom has written a terrific book on chickens, and the many facets of the fine line of keeping happy, healthy, chickens in a beautiful backyard garden setting. It is a fresh and informative book on chickens. I consider myself a chicken aficionado, and I think her book is right on. Her tips are little tidbits of chicken wisdom.
That’s not all, now through February 17, 2012, Timber Press is currently hosting a contest highlighting Free-Range Chickens and featuring great chicken-related prizes to win. If you love chickens, or you are thinking of getting chickens this spring, this is a great read and guide.
Free-Range Chicken Gardens
Please share if you let your chickens free range in your backyard garden setting. Please comment how you were introduced to keeping chickens. Please share what you like most about your backyard chickens. Please comment on how you name your chickens.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I received my first chickens last fall and they just started laying around Christmas! I couldn’t be more excited. We live in north county San Diego and our 5 white silkie hens have free-range to our backyard nearly everyday (as long as I’m around) and just can’t wait to get out in the mornings. I was introduced to chickens from my music student and her mom. They have many backyard chicken breeds and graciously gave me my 5 young girls from their newly-hatched silkies. What I enjoy most about my chickens is watching them take dirt baths in the sun. They have such silly, sweet personalities, which really shine during their sunny bath times. Since our hens are sisters from the same parents, they are extremely difficult to tell apart and hence lack names! However, they are no less dear to our hearts with their nameless status.
I got into chickens by accident. My son, in college but still a sucker for soft and fuzzy, fell in love with some chicks. The minimum purchase at the feed store was six. The maximum allowed in the city was three. I said I’d home his extras. In a few months, he’d decided chickens were not working for him, but I was hooked. I now have a dozen (I have an over sized lot). I have two breeds which I free range on alternate days. I love how entertaining they are, how many, varied breeds there are, and how pretty they are.
Yes, my girls do fee range in the backyard. They love to sit just outside the back door on the rug and look inside at the cats. That way everyone is entertained! I got them just after our town passed an ordinance OKing up to 6 hens, but no roosters. Their names are Lila, Thistle, Dixie, and Poppy and I can’t begin to tell you the reasoning behind the names. They just seemed right.
My flock (18 at the moment) has free range over all ten acres of our little farm. But they prefer to spend their time scratching and taking dust baths in my flower beds or eating the treats sent down from those bird feeders hung from the eaves of the house and tree branches in the old orchard.
I’ve had chickens for over 50 years! Growing up on my Grandparents farm, I was given my first trio of banties (1 rooster and 2 hens) when I was but a wee lassie of about 8 years old. I’ve been smitten ever since!
I am forever thrilled with those lovely eggs they gift me with each morning and have had a little fun selling them to friends and family. (I do have to pay for that expensive organic feed they receive!)
Most of the girls (and a rooster or two or three) receive their name when they are a little bit older so I can learn their peculiarities and personalities. Many are named after people or fictional characters. A few do not have names but are still loved just the same!
I’ve had chickens for nearly 2 years here in the UK. They free-range in most of the garden space, but are fenced out of my veg plot otherwise I wouldn’t have anything to harvest… They’ve all come from a UK charity that rehomes commercial egg layers at the point they’re usually slaughtered to make room for new young laying pullets. It’s so nice to see them experience outdoor life for the first time – and they even adapted well to 4 inches of snow this week. Current flock are: Chicken Licken, Georgie, Ruby (after my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary), Snowflake and Yolkey Dokey (we let an 8 yr old name that last one). Names come from friends’ suggestions, seasonal ideas or events and we usually have one named after a soccer player from my hubby’s favourite team…
Jules, sound like you have a happy flock. It is great you adopt and rescue. I love the names. Thanks for sharing…VintageGardenGal
I have four chickens now due to the coyote sneaking up on my free range girls. I heard gunshots the other day from a distant neighbor area and haven’t seen the coyote since the BOOM. Thank you neighbor if you took care of the problem. I have three Araucana hens, Agnes, Gladys and Edith. Beatrice was the Cuckoo Maran that the coyote killed and now Catherine is without her friend. I, also, have two Guinea foul Fred and Ethyl. I now know that Fred is the wrong name so will change to Hilda. I purchased the quineas to control the ticks and the snakes. All my birds nest together at night in the chicken house and free range all day all around the property. I feed them organic soy free feed and they will be a year old this spring. They lay the most beautiful eggs with bright orange yolks that are truly tasty. I am thinking about getting several baby chicks this spring to increase my flock.
Shirley, thanks for sharing. It is devasting to lose a hen…VintageGardenGal
I have loved chickens since I was a girl and visited the chicken coop at the engineering firm where my father worked. This firm was happily located on a former estate that still supported cows and chickens. I noticed that the quiet coop would start a rumble of clucking when I stepped in and would stop when I stepped out. I could entertain myself for hours with these conversational hens. I perpetually enjoy watching chickens peck, walk, scratch, and scramble over for a treat.
I have a couple of flocks now, one that is confined within a chicken fence and another that has free range of the land behind the house. I love waking up on the weekends and seeing the chickens behind the house ready to greet us. They are very helpful in the barn, especially when we clean it and they stick around to eat fly larva and other bugs. The live happily with the goats and the turkeys. Unlike the guinea flock that we were not able to sustain, they stick close to home and always return to the safety of the coop in the evening. It is pure joy to have their company in the yard.
Excellent article! My family and I are looking forward to raising chickens in the near future and they will definately be welcomed visitors to the garden.
I pre-ordered Jessi Bloom’s book because it looked to be just what I was looking for. When it came, I was delighted to see that it was filled with lovely photos and great information! There is so much mis-information online about plants that are supposedly poisonous to chickens. I wonder how many people yank out their hydrangea bushes, thinking that their backyard-ranging chickens will commit hari-kari, eating the leaves and flowers!
Unfortunately, I can’t allow my girls to free-range (we have hawks and I’m loathe to clip the wings of my flighty bantam), but I have plans to expand their run this spring so that it will encompass a good amount of my small, suburban backyard. I plan to seed an area with “eco-turf” that they’ll enjoy nibbling, and I’ll be adding a number of berry bushes and plants that will hopefully provide them a year full of varied treats!
Gardening has always been a favorite hobby, and my decision to add a coop and hens to my yard was probably as much to add interest and ornament to my “cottage potager” as it was to satisfy a lifelong desire for pet hens and their eggs. Jessi Bloom’s book is just what I had in mind, as I plan to better incorporate my coop and run into my yard. What fun it’s going to be this spring to create something that will make my girls happy and will make me smile every time I look out of my kitchen window!