- Jun 5, 2010
- 38
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Hi all,
Even after reading so many informative posts in the archives, I have a question.
I plan 4 pullets and have a half-acre lot. It's an old city house, so there's a full 10'x16' henhouse out back that I'm restoring now and will use half to house the chickens. Next to the henhouse is an area that can best be described as scrap land, a sort of compost/dumping corner that looks like it was probably the old run. I think so because it's hard as a brick and almost nothing grows there. Behind that is a 3 acre lot of hardwood and wetlands.
I work about an hour away from my house. My wife is unenthusiastic about having chickens, her father raises them and she views them a smelly, dirty, and they eat all the grass, pooping everywhere. There lies the problem.
My plan is this.
Use sand in the henhouse, leave the run bare or use pine needle bedding and let them pick like crazy at whatever they find. I read that pine needles work very well as bedding in the run.
Feed ample food scraps.
Allow them to free range in the larger grassy section that we don't often use when I am home.
Let them in the backyard where we spend most of our time on an irregular basis.
My questions.
How quickly will 4 chickens decimate a 1/4 acre lawn if regularly fed food scraps?
Can I let them free range in the woods/wetlands unsupervised?
If the main run is 30x40' what can I do to keep them from turning it into a brick and hearing the inevitable "I told you so"?
Do you have any thoughts or suggestions? I rather like my front lawn, it's rich and it took a long time to nurse it from the over-fertilized monster it once was.
Thanks so much!
Bill
Even after reading so many informative posts in the archives, I have a question.
I plan 4 pullets and have a half-acre lot. It's an old city house, so there's a full 10'x16' henhouse out back that I'm restoring now and will use half to house the chickens. Next to the henhouse is an area that can best be described as scrap land, a sort of compost/dumping corner that looks like it was probably the old run. I think so because it's hard as a brick and almost nothing grows there. Behind that is a 3 acre lot of hardwood and wetlands.
I work about an hour away from my house. My wife is unenthusiastic about having chickens, her father raises them and she views them a smelly, dirty, and they eat all the grass, pooping everywhere. There lies the problem.
My plan is this.
Use sand in the henhouse, leave the run bare or use pine needle bedding and let them pick like crazy at whatever they find. I read that pine needles work very well as bedding in the run.
Feed ample food scraps.
Allow them to free range in the larger grassy section that we don't often use when I am home.
Let them in the backyard where we spend most of our time on an irregular basis.
My questions.
How quickly will 4 chickens decimate a 1/4 acre lawn if regularly fed food scraps?
Can I let them free range in the woods/wetlands unsupervised?
If the main run is 30x40' what can I do to keep them from turning it into a brick and hearing the inevitable "I told you so"?
Do you have any thoughts or suggestions? I rather like my front lawn, it's rich and it took a long time to nurse it from the over-fertilized monster it once was.
Thanks so much!
Bill