Letting out the chickens

We had a bit of an experiment with the hens today. We were on the allotment digging (well David was digging but following a rather painful slip on the ice on Thursday evening, I was supervising) and decided to let the hens out to wander as they thought fit around the allotment. It was interesting watching them do so. Generally, they kept together and rather enjoyed looking for bugs, worms and weeds. Eventually, they all decided to walk back into the chicken run of their own accord. So, we will be letting them out more often in the future, when there are more bugs around. What we have to watch out for however is stopping them eating our crops.