Do I need to gate in chickens?

[KorvaMeister]

The gate says that it's used for gating animals, does that apply to chickens? I didn't understand I have to let them out so I gated the front area (6x5 gated) and I am just wondering, do I need to gate it chickens? Will they run off and I have to buy new ones?

[Jack]

I've had my chickens and cows free-range for three seasons and nothing has gone wrong, so probably not.

[Tumalu]

The fences/gates are just if you want to keep them in certain areas of your farm.
They won't leave or anything.

[Dasani]

i dont

[dwobwinkle]

Can't they eat your crops?

[Detective John Munch]

I don't think they eat your crops (I haven't had it happen to me and my chicken coop is constantly open)
You generally don't need to fence them in unless you want to as they generally go back inside the coop in the evenings and don't come outside if it's raining.

[Lurlex]

As far as I know, fences and gates are mostly for aesthetics (I always have to chuckle at the sheer number of threads started by players that seem so worried about fences and them breaking, given that they do so little for your actual game success).

The one exception I know of, after lots of reading, is if you decide to raise pigs. They apparently have a roaming tendency and their truffles can get spread out if you don't mitigate that somewhat by giving them a limited area. Someone with more livestock experience should correct me if I'm wrong ... I just barely started on chickens, and even that was out of a sense of completion (common wisdom at the moment is that it's a waste of time and space on your farm to raise animals).

[Drakenstein]

Originally posted by Lurlex:

. I just barely started on chickens, and even that was out of a sense of completion (common wisdom at the moment is that it's a waste of time and space on your farm to raise animals).

Maybe so, but I got my bee houses out ofthe way by sticking them in the forest where the spring onions go...I figured that gives me room to spare for free range fowl.

[Rafein]

Main thing with fences is you can find them quickly. So if you want to interact with them, or Milk them, they are easier to keep track of them.