11/08/2026
People keep asking if we are worried about bird flu- of course we are.
But for now, we don’t intend to house them indoors because our setup isn’t ideal for that.
We have all food and water sources indoors, away from our beautiful wild birds anyway. But our hens usually do wander far and wide, and drink from the “swamp” dam. So we have fenced them off to prevent them wandering there and reduce mingling. I’ve read that infected wild birds can p**p in water sources and spread it that way.
You can’t see it here but the fence extends a long way to the back of the coop, to vary the pasture they’re on and we move it every month or two. And yes, we have a big fireweed problem this year, we suspect it was brought in on the flood. They have about an acre of pasture inside the fence. So we still fulfill the stocking rate of about 100 per hectare (50 hens here). Many “free range” cartons have significantly higher stocking rates listed on their cartons - take a look.
The more I learn about some farming practices, the more I want to pamper our poultry!
