Free Range Chicken Farming Tips

Free range chicken farming is very popular across the country these days.

It’s basically, the practice of chicken farming and allowing them to graze and roam free outside of their pens and letting them enter the coop only at night. The chickens are generally allowed to roam freely in the garden and find their own food. Their diet may be supplemented with additional supplements in their water or feeders. You don’t need a lot of space to raise free range chickens. This article provides an overview of free range chicken farming tips.

free-range-chicken-farming

There are many benefits of free-range chicken farming. The most important benefit is you can generally get a higher price per pound, for the meat and eggs of free range chickens.

Customers are willing to pay more for this type of chicken and eggs because they are much tastier and healthier compared to broiler chicken products. Free range chicken meat contains more nutrients and less fat. The cost of operating such a business is quite lower since you don’t have spend so much on chicken feed and maintenance. The chickens will find their own food while roaming in the garden or field. Since they feed on organic food, their eggs and meat are more nutritious compared to pen raised chickens.

free-range-chicken-eggs

     Another advantage is these chickens will debug and weed your yard. These chickens actually prefer to eat bugs and weeds found in the garden rather than artificial store feeds.

The guano of such chickens is considered an excellent source of manure for your garden. Health wise, free range chickens are easy to rear. You will not have to incur a fortune on medical costs to rear them. There are many natural treatment methods for minor illnesses of free range chickens. For example, lemongrass is preferred for detoxification while garlic and chilies work well as antibiotics. Leucaena leucocephala is considered a great anti-parasitic and anti-mite medicine for these chickens.

Above is a huge free range farm I wanted to share – check that out!

There are a few disadvantages of rearing free range chickens.

One is they will poop almost in any place in your garden. Hence, you have to block them from areas in your garden that you do not want them to poop. These chickens can easily stray into neighboring gardens. Hence, you have to be on the watch out for this. They will also lay eggs anywhere in the garden.

Because they can roam about, they are also more prone to predators. You need to keep these things in mind when planning a free range chicken farming business in your garden or backyard.