Anyone "killing two birds with one stone"?

[dkistner1111]

I have a very large garden area that's a jungle right now, and I intend to put my girls to work in it as soon as I can. I'm trying to come up with a good design that I can work on modularly (like 4x4 or 6x6 with a keyhole-style path), rotating sections. I've seen the cattle panel hoop-type tractors and such, and that's something I could do piecemeal over time. I'm wondering if anyone has done anything with permanently placed hoop-style structures that can do double (or triple) duty as (a) chicken's working space, (b) supports for veggies, and (c) mini-greenhouse spaces. Has anyone worked out something like this and, if so, how do you lay it out based on the four directions?

I have a kennel-coop near the garden where I will pin my girls up at night to keep them safe, but I'd like to turn them "loose" to work in structured areas of the garden that I'm not currently planting to keep the weeds and bugs down. Is anyone doing this kind of thing? Do you have pictures?

 

[MJCooper42]

 

[mcostas]

I have been taking my young chickens out of the tractor when I'm home, and put them in the overgrown garden. They walk there on thier own now. I have also put a bunch of leaves and clippings that I was adding to my compost pile out there for them to process.

I only have a 2 foot fence around it with metal poles, it was intended just to keep my doggies from digging in the garden. Tonight they also foraged in the yard a little, then went back to their tractor.

I'll post some pics tommorrow. I am going to get a 10x10 kennel and make a bigger coup for them. I am still planning on letting them forage in the garden. Hopefully that little fence will discourage them when it's time to plant again. I might have to make a bigger garden fence.

 

[dkistner1111]

Quote:
I just finished the roof on my 6x10 kennel coop yesterday, with no help from DH except to lift/slide it up onto the top of the coop. I'm so proud of myself! My chicks are only three weeks old, but they do NOT want to go back into their brooder after I've let them be out for a little while. Now that I've got the roof on, I won't feel like I have to be out there watching them every second while they are in the coop. I can let them have a fit!

What I was thinking of doing in the garden is having side-by-side square or rectangular plots with hoops made out of drip irrigation pipe stuck down over rebar in the ground, with something thrown over the top to keep chickens out or in, depending on what I want them to be doing. But then I started reading the posts about cattle panels, and now I'm wondering if I wouldn't be further ahead to try something using those, starting with a few of them and building the garden up over time as money and my stamina allows.

I got a lot of great ideas from here: http://www.veggiecare.com/howto.html

Maybe I can do a combination somehow. If I can get something sketched out on what I'm thinking of, I'll post it. I want to incorporate mushrooms into my garden, too, but I'm bewildered by how much area I have to work with and need to somehow contain myself to one or two intensive areas at a time.