She has mentioned recently that she would like to get some laying hens sometime, and I'm not rally sure. Well, I guess we just disagree on how they should be kept. She grew up on small farm, and her dad still has lots of chickens. Since his are freerange she insists that ours will be, too. I disagree. While we do have about 6 arces and lots of room for them, her dad has much more: 300+ acres. We have a place in the back of the "garage" that I think would be siutable, with a "doorway" (big hole) already cut through the wall in the back which opens up to an area that could be fenced in nicely.

I say we should keep them in a fenced in area, as we have/had foxes living just behind the garage, many hawks and owls around, the neighbors cats come around and I've read here that they can be quite destructive in the garden. We have worked too hard in our vegetable garden and flower beds to have them torn up by chickens. Plus we have lots of traffic on our road. She says, "Good, they might make the cars slow down." But who wants to be responsible for an accident and have dead chickens in the road?

We have been talking about this for a while, and I just wanted to get some ideas from others. Any thoughts on freerange vs "fenced in" (is that wht you call them??)??? Thanks...