Poultryduk...Do the Amish in your area charge special prices for the "small harnesses?"

Does it take long to teach the chickens GEE and HAA or do they pick it up pretty much like the mules do?

I'm sorry...I couldn't resist. The whole time I was reading your post, all I could think about were these teams of chickens plowing the garden while a farmer had his hand on the plow yelling, "Come on now Bart and Sammie...put your back into it! You can't do any better than that...the wife will put you in the crock pot! Everybody earns their keep on this 40-acres!" You got to admit...that would be a Gary Larson "Far Side" classic.

I think the idea is awesome...

Brian

YES THEY TILL..TILL UP YOUR PLANTS..THEY SEEM TO BE MORE ATTRACTED TO PLACES WITH MULCH TO SCRATCH IN AND IN SECONDS THEY CAN DIG UP YOUR PLANT! MY CHICKENS GET TIME OUT IN THEIR OWN RUN. (LIKE THEY KNOW WHAT THEY DID WRONG)! BUT IF YOU NEED TO LET OFF STEAM.. yELL AT THEM .THEY COULD CARE LESS!

My can kill transplants in less than 30 seconds. Little rake- footed monsters. Beloved rake-footed little monsters, but little monsters none the less.

Brian: Line them up like huskies, Mush, mush you little feather heads! Gee now, Gee I say!

rotflma!

Kitty

What did I do wrong?

I tried doing something similar last year, only it involved using deer netting to keep the chickens in a part of my garden. I didn't throw in mulch (didn't really have any). The chickens didn't do much at all and there are still lots of weeds that were in the garden. What am I doing wrong, I would put as many chickens as I could in the space (it was small, but I couldn't do it everyday). I guess if I could have them in the same space every day for a month it would work, but the way my garden and coop is set up, I have to 'herd' them there, or would throw food in to the enclosed space and then quickly shut the netting.

mersiepoo - you may not have done anything wrong. different breeds of chicken can be more or less aggressive foragers. And they do take several weeks to kill everything in a pen.

My Rhode Island Reds, even as little chicks were very aggressive foragers. My Dominickers take weeks to do when the rhodes did in days. Also you can speed up the process by throwing some scratch grain on the ground. And it also depends on how hard the dirt is. Sand is easier to scratch up than clay.

I have an electric fence I bought to put my poultry in during the summer. It works great, but some areas they scratched deep and some they couldn't dig up at all.

So don't give up.
Kitty

Hi Miss Kitty (love your name!) :)

Yeah, I would put them in the fenced off area, the leghorns would usually fly out, the turken rooster wouldn't do much either. My other birds were so so. I've been letting them outside to scratch up the area now, I usually throw their feed in where I'm going to put the garden. To be fair to my chickens, they were in there in the summer with dry hard ground. They did scratch some of it up, but would leave the huge weeds standing. I guess I'm used to how my pigs would dig it up, ha ha! :)

I better put them in now, so they have time to do a good job on it before planting season starts. :)

Thanks for reminding me, I gotta sell my electric fence! :)

Thank you Miss Kitty! :)
mersie poo

Has anyone here tried this with ducks or geese?

--Jonathan

Jonathon, to my knowledge, ducks and geese are foragers, not "scratchers" - they eat greenery more than insects and seeds, not that they won't eat them, just not as primary foods - so I would think that while they would eat the grass and greenery to nothing if confined to a small area, and MAYBE pull up roots, I doubt they would be as effective as actively scratching chickens. Now, if you want a pond stirred up, dabbling ducks should do it....

I may well be wrong, so please correct my assumptions if so.

Man, I WISH my flock would dig where/what I want! They prefer scratching away all my expensive mulches, both in the potted plants and my planting beds. I have resorted to fencing off all areas I want to keep mulch in. The gals will pop right up into my big containers, kick out all the newly purchased potting mixes, expose the roots of my fruit trees and tropicals, then go stand around on the patio and deck to gossip and poop!

I love them, but what pains thay are!

They do dig up the thick layer of shavings in the coops, turning it over constantly, which helps keep them clean.

They sure don't eat weeds, they prefer flowers and fruits. Possibly they are too well fed? So they can afford to be picky? They have Layer ration available all day, every day, and scratch grains at least once a day. Plus, "doggie" bags from eating out, and all healthy leftovers from our own meals. They are not fat at all though, because they are busy all day destroying my work(G). Oh, and they hunt! I will hear tiny screams outside, and see a hen run by with a doomed frog in her beak, chased by the rest of the gals who all want a share.

The neighbor's poultry are in small pens with no floor or bedding. After a short time, the dirt is hard-packed except for the edges, which are bone dry and dusty. I won't keep my birds in those conditions (Ugh).

But the idea of containing them in a small area to till it is very interesting!

Lisa

They like to scratch up all our mulch. I thought the dog was bad, but he was nothing like those Barred Rocks!
But it's cute when Barry the rooster walks my daughter to the end of the driveway to catch the bus every morning. I'm sure she's the only girl who catches the bus with a rooster for company. Every day!

Poultryduc, Nice! Thanks for the information. Please keep us updated...I'm curious about how long it will take for the hay to disappear.
For the past couple of years we have been extending our garden by dumping the horse stall muck where the garden ends during the winter and then rototillering it into the ground underneath it in late spring. We do get a lot of weeds doing it this way. We don't plant that area until the following year and it's just full of tall weeds by the end of summer. I let the weeds grow up, allowing the taller ones to choke out the short ones, then pulling out and burning the tall ones.
I like your way better...letting the chickens get to the seeds before they can grow.
I will check your blog to see how this works out.
Thanks again. Carrie

Thanks for the forager/scratcher insight regarding ducks and geese, Dibbit.

What about supplementary feed? How do you know whether there are enough bugs, seeds etc. to keep the chickens well fed?

--Jonathan

feed them in the evening, all the feed they will clean up in 15 minutes. adjust from there.

geese are grazers and dont scratch but they are good at keeping grasses clipped off in contained areas. can be useful in garden areas for weeding if properly managed.// Ducks are meat eaters and do a nice job of bug patrol. Mine are herded to the fields to eat up the snails/slugs and other bugs then returned to their enclosue. I keep a nite light at the barn and the ducks gobble down bugs attracted to the light. The animals used for weeding and bugging need to be kept on the hungry side to be the most efficient.

Do a search on Mother Earth. They have a movable chicken coop. The idea is to contain the little buggers to the area you want scratched up and fertilized, yet still be able to "move" the coop to a new location, rinse, and repeat.

I haven't built it, but the dang thing looks promising and I plan on using one this summer, once the hogs get through foraging and eating the scrub on a currently unused patch of land.

I'll let ya know how it goes.