We recently bought a few point of lay Black Rock pullets which we are
keeping in a good sized 5' high wired fenced run for the time being
until they start to lay, but one was out morning and we had the
dickens of a job getting her back with the others. We've not had
this problem before with other commercial breeds. Should we clip
their wings before we let them free range in case they fly into the
field behind our land and possibly be eaten by foxes or disappear in
the distance for ever?

AriesVal wrote:
[8 quoted lines suppressed]

They need to range, Black Rocks are free ranging birds. Why are they being
confined until they lay? our birds are out ranging from 9 weeks old and
would be earlier if our weather was not so bad.
You can contain them behind a 4ft electric netting but they can certainly
get onto a 5 ft wire fence. They are strong birds.
They are not aiming to escape anywhere, just get to more interesting range.
The feed should be in the house, so they will come back to feed, come back
to shelter, come back at night and come back to lay. They will range
around -- not away, they will get favourite spots at different times of the
day.
They do not go off to disappear into the distance but, yes, they do like a
good area to range around in.

On Fri, 2 May 2008 12:20:45 +0100, Jill wrote:

AriesVal wrote:
[8 quoted lines suppressed]

They need to range, Black Rocks are free ranging birds. Why are they
being confined until they lay? our birds are out ranging from 9
weeks old and would be earlier if our weather was not so bad.
You can contain them behind a 4ft electric netting but they can
certainly get onto a 5 ft wire fence. They are strong birds.
They are not aiming to escape anywhere, just get to more interesting
range. The feed should be in the house, so they will come back to
feed, come back to shelter, come back at night and come back to lay.
They will range around -- not away, they will get favourite spots at
different times of the day.
They do not go off to disappear into the distance but, yes, they do
like a good area to range around in.

Thanks so much for replying Jill. The reason behind keeping them in a
confined run until they start laying is because when we've had free
range hens in the past they've tended to lay their eggs outside of
the house and in hidden places!

AriesVal wrote:
[22 quoted lines suppressed]

We have raised hundreds of batches and have never found a problem with them.
If the house is well designed and the nestboxes are the right size, in the
right place etc then the birds have always just naturally used them. We may
get a few start in a corner of a house but they quickly get the drift.