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can anybody give some advice about how much space will be required per a bird and if they are in a run are they free range?
also my ideal would be to give them access to most of garden but have a young schunzer puppy who will probably want to play with them so would any particular breed be better at helping to teach him to leave well alone : and would his poo affect them in anyway.

Hens left to roam in the garden will eventually trash it. As they scratch through your beds looking for worms, grubs and seeds, they will scratch out/eat young plants and scatter earth all over the place. I have in the past let some of our hens out in the daytime during the winter when we are in the garden working. They can peck out some pests and the fox is less likely to nail them when we are working alongside!

I would be tempted to make ('cos I am not allowed to buy anything new!) a movable run. That way you know your hens are safe from predators (including your hound) and you can regularly move them to fresh ground preventing areas from becoming sick/tired. I often use hens this way to clear areas of ground ready for planting. They muck the soil and eat pests into the bargain.

As for the dog poo I would pick it up. Our lawn is something like 200 sqft. Dog poo is less than 1 sqft but I manage to stand on it every time. I am nowhere as good playing Battleships

Our chooks are enclosed in woodland, we keep 5 ladies and Mr Hornblower keeps them in line. Whether that means they are free range I am not sure, but to let them loose in the garden is a disaster, and our case they used to come and take the dogs food from terrace, plus scratch out the plants faster than we could put them in.

Strictly speaking they aren't free range if they are enclosed, but I like my garden too, so we have made them an enclosure. For four hens it's not really huge, maybe about 12' x 10' but it's shaded and they are loving it. They can scrat up all the little creatures they want, but it doesn't stay green for long, so we give them extra greens. We had a much larger one but it was out of sight and after losing five to a fox I wanted to be able to see them.

chookwoman wrote:Strictly speaking they aren't free range if they are enclosed

Free range poultry is defined as birds with a minimum of 4m2 ground available, amongst many other factors.

Oh thanks. I really thought they had to have free range.