Put Your Chickens to Work for You!

(reposted from January 2010)


I've mentioned a few times that I think bored chickens are unhealthy chickens.

Bored chickens fight with one another, pull feathers out and pick pick pick at each other.

Usually the answer to this is to just let them out of the coop and they will run around chasing and eating bugs.

Butttt.....I have a few flower beds and for some darn reason, that is where they all flock to! Next thing I know, they're ripping leaves with their sharp claws and my nice plants are getting shredded. I don't mean they totally destroy my flowerbed, but they do more damage than I like to see!

The other place my chickens seem to end up is on the stairs, trying to come up to the porch! Uh....no! I do NOT want chickens on my porch, thank you. Chicken crap on the lawn is one thing, chicken crap on the porch is not allowed!

An easy answer to this is T-post and chicken wire or field fencing, which I prefer. It's sturdier so I don't seem to need as many T-posts when using it.

We just set up temporary fencing wherever we need it and put the girls in there. Using a wooden fencepost already in place or the wall of a building as a starting point for your fencing will reduce the number of T-posts you'd need.


 

Early afternoon, after they've laid their eggs, I'll let them out of their coop and into the area I want them to work on. Well before dark, I open up the fencing and they all run back home.

(Have you noticed that chickens like to go home before dusk? They want to be all safe and sound in the henhouse before it gets too dark.)

Here they are helping me to get all the weeds out of the berry bed....

An easy way to get a bunch of chickens into an area where you have temporary fencing is to grab a container with chicken scratch or food in it.

Shake it and they'll come hauling butt, believe me!

That's my son in the pic leading the girls to the grazing area.

Working over some composted manure in what is now the third strawberry bed.

 

As you harvest areas of your veggie garden, you can run fencing and put the girls in there to work for you.

Here, we have put a load of
Uncomposted horse manure in there. The girls then spent their afternoons breaking up the manure and eating any little seeds they found.

They have powerful feet, and they will break up all that manure till it's light and fluffy.


 

Another example of temporary fencing strung up between the pig run (on the left) and the permanent chicken run (on the right).

Here, they are working on a big pile of manure.

I just pounded in T-posts and strung the wire right around the big piles we have down by the barn.

 

 

When you've got several chickens working this hard, they are Enjoying themselves! They Love It!

And you will get the benefits! Lots of fluffy airy composted manure that you can add to your veggie and flower beds.

(Another benefit you get from having Happy Chickens!)

That tiny egg is from a chicken who was just starting to lay.

The huge egg is likely from a chicken who has been thru a molt. After they molt, they may lay fewer eggs, but they should all be larger than they were before the molt.

By the way, for new readers, we don't have horses ourselves. We have friends in the Valley with an overabundance of horse biscuits. Since we have a huge need for lots of manure, we're welcome to take as much as we like.

There's a trailer at their place that they fill when they clean up twice a day. Once it's full, they give us a call.

We pick it up and bring some nice cold homemade beer along with us to say thanks!

So, if you're thinking of getting some chickens, start thinking of some easy ways that you can keep your chickens busy working, to offset some of the work you'd have to do! Better they do your work for you!!

Sphere: Related Content