Ideas for getting flock from run to garden

[KlopKlop]

I need some inspiration. This year is my first year on my new acreage and my first year garden is mostly a flop. I have decided that I want to let my flock graze what's left and pull double duty working the soil and fertilizing for next year. This is where you come in! I need to connect my chook yard to the garden. See the photo below for how it is laid out. I don't want just two runs of a fence to make a hallway or something because i don't want to block off the passage between yard and garden completely The gap between the two is about 20 feet

Fire away!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Build a small temporary coop and put it in the garden. When the weather turns bad move them back home.

 

[KlopKlop]

Build a small temporary coop and put it in the garden. When the weather turns bad move them back home.

Only problem is that it is 35 laying hens, so even a 'small' temporary coop with nest boxes and all would be fairly complicated

 

[Bryant Redhawk]

how about letting them out and lead them to the garden with some treats, once they find the way into the garden, you will have no worries about getting them to it, just getting them to go back home. That will mean a few more treats to entice them home for the night.

 

[Ridgerunner]

You might check out Joel Salatin’s chicken tractor. All you need is a very rough shelter until bad weather hits. Poles and tarps with roosts should do.

Also look up his “community nest box”. Two 2’x4’ community nests should handle all your hens.


Forgot predators. You'd need an electric fence.

 

[Percheron chick]

My garden is about 200' from the coop and mine have no trouble finding it. Get out there with a shovel, turn over some dirt and they can't help themselves. A big handful of treats will jumpstart them too. Before chickens, the grasshoppers would decimate the garden. Now, I actually have flowers and vegetables.

They truck back to the coop to lay. Rarely does someone lay elsewhere and it's always a low ranking hen.

 

[KlopKlop]

Probably should have mentioned that the dashed lines are fences and that my hens don't free range, they have a very large fenced yard as pictured.

I would prefer not to build any more coops. I've got 2 tractors full of broilers on my pasture but it would be too much effort to try and move them plus the chickens that far.

 

[junebuggena]

You just need to teach them to come when called. Chickens are very quick learners and are very food motivated. Mine free range on an acre for most of the day, but a simple, "Here, chick, chick!" and they all come running. They will follow me all the way back to their run to get their goodies.

 

[Mini Meat]

You could make a "hoop" tunnel from the pen to the garden just something low to keep them on the path.

 

[KlopKlop]

I was thinking the same thing @Mini Meat

I have them trained to come when I call but I just don't feel comfortable letting them run the farm while I am not home yet. Just since this May I have shot 4 coons and a skunk. I know they don't come out in the day, but I am just not quite ready to risk it yet.

I've got some spare roles of 4ft field fence and 4ft chain link that i will play with this week. Its only a temporary affair so even if I blocked off the throughway it wouldn't be the end of the world.