Why Free Range Fails - Composting Chickens Illustrated (e)Book: Alternatives to Free Range

I give this book 9.5 out of 10 acorns!

I really learned a lot out of it, and have noticed similar things with my flocks of chickens and ducks. Ducks, like chickens, tend to hang out a lot in their favorite areas, and poop there a lot, too. Usually, if I don't have too many ducks, this isn't a problem, as the grass usually likes the extra nitrogen and it's never too much. But, right now they've been staying near the house to be safe from predators, and the area has gotten quite poopy. While ducks don't tear up the ground like chickens, so the grass is still doing fine, it is starting to stink from the lack of relative carbon.

I love how well drawn this comic is. The pictures are very nicely drawn and pleasing to the eye, and they do a fantastic job of illustrating the concepts in the book. I don't know if I would call this a comic, because it is so much higher quality. It's more like a well illustrated handbook.

The information in it is very understandable and well explained. It explains the basics of composting and the reasons behind their methods really well. I will definetly be applying this knowledge to my chicken-keeping!

The comic goes into three methods for keeping chickens without them causing too much destruction: tractors, rotational paddocks, and a composting coop. I'm wondering if there could be a fourth, too. Right now, my chickens have the area surrounding their coop filled with wood chips. I throw in veggie scraps and weeds in there, and they tear it all up and have a great time. There's no chicken poop smell because of all the carbon and happy soil/compost microbiota. In the area away from their coop, they still have plenty of green grass and weeds to eat. I've only had my four chickens for half a year now, so I can't speak to how long this will work, but I'm wondering if there could be a mix of large run/free range with a composting coop and area around their coop?

I think this is a very handy book for anyone keeping chickens or planning on keeping chickens.

Super informative, comprehensive look at the healthiest way to keep hens that no one is talking about. Highly recommend!!

is there a way of buying this from the Uk?

Looks good.
I had my chickens free ranging my entire backyard for years.
This resulted in death for every annual plant they encountered.
Now I restrict them to the perimeter, including the 20 foot long compost pile.
They spend most of their time there, and seem just as happy as before.

Nicole Alderman wrote:
The comic goes into three methods for keeping chickens without them causing too much destruction: tractors

There is a presentation, i think it was by Paul, that says how bad chicken tractors are for the chicken.
I mean they are are forced into an small area picking their food between their excrements,
that can`t be animal friendly.

Does the book deal with the core of the free ranging problem,
i.e. that Chicken are forrest animal and not suited for a lawn/meadow?

The free range chicken i see are mostly on a lawn/meadow, however when they are put into a food
forrest things seem to work out.

The book does a really great job of explaining that it's the lack of carbon that causes most of the problems. A forest has a lot more carbon than grassland, so that could be why chickens free ranging in the forest don't cause as much damage. It's been a while since I looked through the ebook, so there might be more to it than what I just mentioned.

As for Paul on chickens, he has an article on Richsoil.com as well as a bunch of videos on his youtube channel. Here's one about free range chickens:

I can relate. I gave my chickens a run that I thought was more than enough and they ate it down into slop in no time flat. Learning that they are forest critters has me thinking that I've got them in the wrong place. I mean, they eat ev-er-y-thing. They eat the roots of plants growing on the other side of the fence, after they've devoured everything on their own side. The way that they interact with their world is almost purely by eating it (the world). Chickens are voracious, but I and my dog do enjoy eating their eggs. So we gotta magic up a new way.

R. Han wrote:
Does the book deal with the core of the free ranging problem,
i.e. that Chicken are forrest animal and not suited for a lawn/meadow?

This video shows chicken on a farm with poplar trees. Even if you don't know german,
you will clearly see that chicken prefer to be close to the trees to being in the open.

Maybe I can load up the female cage with wood chips, as soon as this rain stops.  they do like the grass I throw to them.

Interesting thoughts on free ranging.  We've also seen issues free ranging. We also tried having them in with our larger animals rotating on pasture, but our Livestock Guardian Dogs ate them... more work to go introducing them.  When we tried to have them follow behind, given our brittle high pains desert environment the ground cover for bugs was gone so there weren't enough bugs for the chickens to benefit from.

While I haven't read the eBook, I've tried composting with chickens and I don't see how it could achieve the results I'm after.  Chickens certainly do an impressive job of tearing things up, but the resultant compost was always dry.  I don't see how it could support fungi, so I expect that use of the resultant compost would promote weed growth rather than act as an inoculant of the soil food web.  I've thought of using the chicken compost as an input to worm composting to restore some biological benefit in applying it to the land.

My current experiment is having the chickens help with pre-composting by shredding grass/hay that we can't feed our larger animals.  The goal is to use the shredded material as an input to a Johnson-Su compost setup.