4m x 3m Omlet pen, cube, new auto door still boxed and coop light

[lulup100]

Hi everyone,

Just need a bit of advice really; In October our junior school rescued 10 battery hens which are now living very happily in our school grounds. We have a cube and a large-ish walk-in run (which was built by clever parents!) and now 5 of them are laying regularly.

 

The children take it in turns to clean their cube and run and we feed them veg s"Ooops, word censored!"s from the school kitchen. Its been a really excellent learning experience for all the children (and us teachers!) but I'm now really wanting to let the chickens free range in the school grounds. The problem is that there is no real perimeter fencing- there are gaps in the hedges and the field goes straight onto the car park. The chickens really love playtime and lunchtime because of the attention they get from the kids but im worried that they might get scared whilst free ranging and run away...

 

any advice would be greatly appreciated- i will post some before and after pictures of the ladies for you all to see, Im very proud of them!!

[Guest]

Couldn't they have a fenced off area around the run to free-range in? Then small groups of children could go in with them from time to time. some children and chickens will not want to be that near each other I would have thought. Chickens might run at children and children at chickens. Presumably in the summer someone will have to make sure they are shut up before they leave the premises (or does the Caretaker undertake to do that?) it would make them easier to tempt into the Cube and Cube run, I would have thought....

[Snowy]

Gaps in the fencing are not so much of a problem - they will wander where the food is and go back to the coop at roost time. But if they are round the playground you may have parents concerned about chicken poo, also you would have to ensure that all children washed their hands when coming in after breaks. It's one thing teaching your own children about hygiene but a whole schoolful! And as said above, some children may not be as aware of how to handle them correctly or safely. The idea of a wider run and some supervised mingling is a better idea in my opinion.

[blackgold]

Invest in some omlet netting and then you can have a safe area for them to free range in. Chooks are quite easy for children to fall over or even stand on accidentally. Also it will keep the poo in one area and so you wont have the horrified parents bit. The kids and chooks can still interact through the netting as it is quite soft not solid like the run.