Free-range

For backyard keepers, free-range simply means your hens get to leave their run and roam the garden during the day, rather than spending all their time penned in. It is less a legal label than a description of how the birds live: out on the grass, under hedges and in the borders, doing what chickens naturally do.

Why free-ranging is good for hens

Chickens are busy, curious animals. Given the run of a garden they will scratch for worms and insects, peck at weeds, take dust baths in dry soil, and stretch and flap in a way a cramped run never allows. This foraging is both exercise and entertainment, and it tops up their diet with fresh greens and protein.

The welfare payoff is real. Hens that range tend to be calmer, fitter and less prone to the boredom-driven habits, such as feather-pecking, that crop up in confined flocks. Many keepers also find the eggs have richer, deeper-yellow yolks, thanks to all that foraged green stuff. This is the natural behaviour that the term "free-range" is really pointing at, whether you have two hens or twenty.

Balancing range with a productive garden

The catch is that a free-ranging hen treats your veg patch as a buffet and a building site. They will strip seedlings, peck ripening strawberries, scratch out newly sown rows and take dust baths in your best soil. A few sensible boundaries keep the peace:

• Fence or net off the vegetable beds, or use a cloche over tender rows and young plants.
• Let the flock out in the afternoon only, once you have done the day's sowing and tending.
• Give them their own tempting patch, perhaps a rough corner or a permitted bed after harvest, so they leave the rest alone.

Mature, established plants usually shrug off a bit of chicken attention, so the conflict is mainly with seedlings and soft fruit.

Keeping them safe from foxes

The biggest risk to a free-range flock in the UK is the fox, which will hunt by day as well as night, town gardens included. Free-ranging works best when birds can be supervised, or when the garden is enclosed by secure fencing they cannot squeeze under.

Whatever happens during the day, every hen must be shut into a fox-proof coop at dusk and let out again after sunrise. Chickens put themselves to bed once it gets dark, so locking up becomes a simple evening routine. An automatic coop door takes the worry out of it if you are out at dusk.

If you are just starting out, a roomy run with daily supervised ranging is a sound middle path: see our guide to keeping chickens in your garden. It is also worth understanding what to expect when you bring home point-of-lay pullets or rehome ex-battery hens, who may need time to learn that the great outdoors is safe.