using your chickens in the garden

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I put this on a thread below, but then thought it should have a thread all of its own for you who are building chicken yards and gardens. Pick a space for your garden and fence the whole thing in for chickens. Set your chicken house in the middle. Then I use that orange or black webbing fencing that you can buy at farm stores for my cross fence. Use one half of the garden space for your chickens this year, tossing all kitchen scraps, grass clippings, etc into the chicken yard. They will churn it all up, eat all the weed seeds and compost it all with their chicken manure. You won't even have to spread it out. They will do it for you. Plant your garden on the other side of the pen. Next planting season switch your chickens over to that side and let them compost and prepare that spot for the following season. Don't forget in the fall to let them have free range over what you have left in the garden..They will have it all cleaned up before first good snow fall.

Taz..who loves to garden, but likes doing it the easy way!

-- Taz (Tassie @aol.com), June 26, 1999

Answers

We didn't have that much space around here, and the dry weather in So Cal. makes the earth rock hard. So I just rake up the stuff and dump it under the grapefruit tree. (used to let the birds run all over the yard, but they trash the place.) maybe you get more rain in your neck of the woods.

-- Otay (spanky@lilrsacles.com), June 26, 1999.

Good advice, Taz. I missed this thread somehow! My geese keep the entire yard (2 acres?) totally free from most weeds as well, however they'd tear up the ground in a garden too much. Also, chickens eating pests and insects won't need the extra protien supplements in their diets, needed for laying. Do be sure to rotate them, as she described...if left too long in one location, they'll kill 'anything' growing, rotate. One of the most helpful books on chickens we have is, "Pastured Poultry Profits" by Joel Salatin...worth the money!

-- Will continue (farming@home.com), June 27, 1999.

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