Chicken Run - Experiments in planting greens
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- Опубликовано: 20 окт 2024
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Three variations on a theme to protect the soil from constant pecking and scratching to allow weeds to grow to feed the hens later. A follow up on this experiment will happen for sure, a little down the road :)
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Happy growing!
Your channel is my absolute favorite place to find chicken compost and ecosystem ideas. I have so much fun figuring out all the ways to incorporate chickens into the garden system 🌱✨🐔
LOL stairs to the front of the house? We don't need that.... Always enjoying your videos, keep up the great work! Innovative thinking using what you have is awesome. I use the white wire shelving you have as climbers for things like canteloupe, peas or beans - just attach a 1x2 board to each side with zip ties, keeping extra length of wood at one end that you can drive into the ground.
We have pet rabbits who run on our lawn each day and have used a similar idea to protect the grass while letting them graze on what grows through. We have these quite chunky panels (I think from a warehouse cage) which lie a couple of inches above the grass and are strong enough that the rabbits can sit on them without them bending. Every so often we move them around the lawn to areas that have been overly grazed.
I always enjoy the ideas that you share on repurposing items that you have found or purchased. I can't imagine paying full price for items that can be reused in unique and innovative ways. Thanks again😊
Birds look super healthy
I really enjoy these experiments you do. Sometimes I try something similar only for someone else to come along behind me and clean up my "mess" so my "yard" won't be so unsightly. I had a 7 year experiment of a brush pile breaking down PURPOSEFULLY. It was just getting to the point where I was learning important things when I came out to find my brother-in-law cleaning up the last bits from his taking it to the municipal waste people. He didn't even ask. I ran out and told him to "bring it ALL BACK"! He said "I can't". I said "then you shouldn't have done it"! I am ordinarily a pretty chill, mind-mannered person. But I darned near did him in right there.
😢 I have got a husband like this, everything green is a weed. It is difficult to keep him out of the garden as he 'only wants to help '....
@@turtle2212 Yes, my husband is like this as well. But I've had 30 years to train him to ASK FIRST. Not so with his brother. The frustrating thing is I'm sure we could both use some REAL help.😒
Thought you would like to know the channel Holler Homestead gave you a shout out. Ben talked about the qualities of all the trees he has ordered from you.
Lowest effort for greens I believe would be store your not-yet-used panel rolls in the area you want the greens to grow. If they are just standing around anyway, they could be protecting growing sprouts and there is little chance that the chickens can get to them.
The fuki I ordered this spring is growing well. Happy to see it in a larger context. Very nice!
Thank you for being so thoughtful and giving us such great ideas to try.
Thank you. Because of your videos my chickens are now making my compost. I was trying to think of a way to grow greens in their area and you have helped me organize that as well.
You are by far my favorite resource for practical solutions! Thanks!!
I love George’s tenaciousness- very inspiring 😂
I experimented growing wheat grass for our 9 hens this winter. They loved it, roots seeds and all. I got a little bit lazy, so we ended up cooking them some cracked wheat mush for their evening treat. It helped them stay warm during our SE Idaho nights. They're free ranging in our backyard now with dandelions and loads of Kentucky blue grass lawn cover. Our eggs are still larger than store bought with beautiful, dark orange yolks. ** You can catch your cuttings from mowing and dump it in your coop. They love chomping and scratching through that stuff. 😅
I’m looking forward to the follow up. I’m in the same boat with bare ground, my problem is dry clay soil I have lots and lots of wood chips just need to dedicate more time to moving it into the chicken yard.
I do use a 2x4 and hardware cloth compost sifter that I build out of scraps to plant seeds under so the chickens can’t get to it. I haven’t had luck planting under chicken wire, my hens pick the seeds out through it, they somehow know they are there.
Physically attaching the wire to the right lengths of wood, whether it is old boards or branches cut from trees laid down over the seedings or plants would also work, using the thickness of the wood to raise the wire off the ground. Something I am getting ready to do in my run. It can then be lifted and leaned against the external fencing to access the ground underneath.
I'll have to revisit this concept. Have to rework the space as it's mostly compacted.
I've made some very rudimentary grazing frames from left over materials & add soaked seed to them. I also transplanted some dandelions from friends for them too.
I recently built a chunnel from their covered run to the compost (so they are free to roam while being safe from predators) which is a thick woodchip layer with soaked seed tossed in. Millet, wheat, oat, buckwheat, sunflower seed, field peas - sometimes it is cover crop materials sometimes it is their scratch.
I was inspired to do all of this from you! So thank you for the inspiration!
I also am transplanting things that I let go to seed along the outside edges of their chicken tunnel so they can enjoy them such as parsely, borage, calendula. One area of their tunnel is up against some raspberries & roses so they are enjoying eating the lower & over arching leaves.
I also have used branches as a way to limit the chickens access to scratching out all the plantings but still be able to let them enjoy eating the growth
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Sean, for these ideas of how to keep the chickens from pecking at my tomato seedlings. This is so timely since was just wondering how to keep them out until the tomato plants get established and I can put higher barriers as they grow stronger. Great form over function. 🙏
Some of my successful experiments on this include lines of upsidedown milk crates with every extra seed thrown in line on broadforked soil then dust compost and sawdust through, many things will grow up through the crate for the chickens can peck; also brush debris piles over and around potted comfrey, once a year chop horizontally under the pot and transfer the pot to the next propagation zone while the now in-ground root regrows.
I ❤creative problem solving using whatever you have on hand. 🎉Bravo👍
Inspiring! This is what i am going to work on. I have chicken wire and was planning to lay it over a section of my run to grow some greens. Awesome video, I'm going to proceed and give it a go. I'm just going to spread seeds since i dont have any seedlings.
I love these kinds of videos! Thank you.
The brush path idea really interests me, I hope it works
I did something like that in the green house for the chickens late winter, it was kale and cabbage under 1/4 inch hardware cloth. It didn't really get going until chickens left, but it did look like they got a little green out of it
Looking forward to the update! I think it will work!
Please show how waterworks are looking now. Maybe a timelaps for a day or two?
I love seeing swales and other water works ❤❤❤
Love your channel!! Thank you🎉
I love it Sean! I have all that you've shown. I will get to work for growing in my chicken runs. I love your chickens. they are great business partners.
I have done the same kind of thing with chicken wire using bamboo sticks on the 4 corners and just slide the chicken wire up and down for the height I need--kinda like a floating barrier. Keeps the wild birds from eating my baby greens.
chickens are lil rototillers...my thought for the summer was to get free 55 gal drums cut in halves and line the outside of their chicken run with them as planter boxes/dig barriers from predators.Then just try to grow chicken greens in the planters and let them spill thru wire fence or chop n drop method...interested to see if the plants can take the raw manure in the ground with your in ground wire box.
I'll be interested to see how your planting seeds through that downed brush pile works out. I have a somewhat similar area where I tried that, but nothing I've seeded in there makes it through the brush. I think some key factors are likely ensuring your seeds get all the way down and make good soil contact, and having a quite thin layer of brush, no more than six inches or so. This year I tried mashing some seeds into clay and balling them up before I seeded them into my brush pile/trench. However, the clay was wet and really too sticky to do what I wanted, as most of the balls were sticking to the brush above the soil level. Still, I'll see how that goes...
What do you do with those Fuki leaves,Sean? I’ve had very little success trying to find out if poultry would eat it, or if it’s even safe for them. Looks like you might have some direct experience.
Do you have any problem with foxes "browsing" some hens? Seems like this might happen very easily with an open style chicken run.
I use pallets then put chicken wire over it they can reach the grass when it grows up threw
Watching you for years. The neighbors all have or had chickens. We have a lot of predators (coyotes) here. How would you prevent the predators from getting to the chickens?
Good fencing is a must
@@glennwilck5459 They ended up having to do sky netting for the run(for hawks), they gave up at animals that will dig under the fence. It was sad.
I have an extra 2' square air pruning bed and I've tried something similar. I flipped it upside down and planted a bunch of greens. Everything is exploding, but I'm pretty sure the hens will destroy it all within minutes once I give them access.
I guess thats the trick, figuring out how to keep things like that in place to protect the greens root systems... hmmm
Oh Boy... gee thanks. Making me think again.. have plenty of old welded wire that I can use for this idea.
Have you found all varieties of dock helpful for chickens? We have a lot of Broadleaf dock around the property and are unaware how to utilize it. Thank you!
I'm not sure I have a full or final answer for you but it seems most if not all of the dock types we add into the chicken yard are enjoyed by them
@@edibleacres Thank you!
How do you stop the rats from nesting in your compost?
How is Stacia and baby?
I notice the fencing on the road side of your chicken run/compost area has fairly sparse foliage. Do the chickens never attempt to fly over that section of the fence? Or have you managed to give them so much interest in their run via all that compost and hidden food (worms and such) that they don't even bother? I had a flock of bantams that slowly got picked off by our fairly heavy predator pressure (foxes, neighborhood dogs, who knows what else) because they left the security of the large 40x60' run I have fenced for them, which is about 5 feet tall. I since switched to Rhode Island Reds and the same was happening, they'd eventually get bored of the run and fly over to get slowly picked off once the predators realized they could access them again. I've since regrown the flock and elevated their fencing and am now going to run some netting overhead as a countermeasure to hawks since there are lots of chicks running about now. In short, do you lose any hens? And how do you stop them from flying over? I always notice you don't seem to have any roosters, do you just not accept them or cull them? Love your operation!
you could clip their flight feathers(just one side) every year if you want to skip the overhead net.
@@jesshorn257 the net would be more so for hawk pressure, the elevated fencing should already take care of them flying over as its like 7 feet tall now
@@nickbangr depending on your breed you choose I had bantams that would roost up in trees 15ft and had barred rocks fly up to the 6-8 ft range(I tried free range and the local raptor birds loved free chicken diner)...personally I went with an enclosed chicken run and just made it my grass clippings compost pile area also. It lets my LSG dog focus on an area and used chicken wire on top weaved with the 18 awg electric galv steel wire to strengthen it up and tie it together
Save marigold heads at the end of the season i did last year I've got thousands of seed stock from a very few😯
This is an amazing idea!!! I’ve been struggling to figure out how to do this without a spending a lot and without a huge time investment. I have these things lying around! I’m going to do this tomorrow!
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So green and wet where you are ❤
I live in the high desert mountains and ‘green’ with envy 🥹
I have made attempts to create green zones but getting water to them was hard and they would all dry up and die 😢