Anyone setup something like this..........

[Nichole77]

Great plan. Now come over and do mine.

 

[airmom1c05]

I LOVE it! If I can talk my DH into building a new coop, I have room to try it. We would have to split up our garden which would be the only drawback since I've spent YEARS and $$$$$ amending our clay soil to something resembling fertile garden soil. I might make two doors on the south side of the coop and have my coop at the north end of the garden with a fence running down the center of the garden. Our garden is 130 ft. long running south to north and 65 ft. wide east to west. I've read that the compost pile should be quite a good distance from the chickens, so we would continue to haul the chicken droppings to a remote location. Right now our existing coop is a far distance from the garden at the north end of the property right next to the barn. It could be moved and releveled. Problem is, the big entrance door is the only door in our coop. When it's opened, Brandy flies out. Perhaps we could turn the whole coop around and install two small chicken doors keeping one closed leading to the active part of the garden and the other opened leading to the inactive part. Fencing that much garden area might be cost prohibitive for us in the immediate future, but still, something to estimate and consider. Thanks for sharing. I saved the link to my favorites.

 

[seminolewind]

That is wonderful! I love that idea, well well thought out.

 

[thechickman04]

wish i could do that but me and my grandpa have a 2.5 acre garden

 

[Scrambled Egg]

It looks great to me too, wish I had the room!

 

[airmom1c05]

Quote:
I haven't done it yet, but plan to add 1/2" hardware cloth at the bottom 5 ft. around my pen and bend it outward from the coop a foot or so and cover it in dirt. Folks on here swear by it because digging predators always dig right at the fence. They don't have sense to back up a foot before digging. If you can afford to go further than a foot, it might give you more peace of mind.

 

[Pelican49]

Thanks for the response airmom... sounds easier than trying to dig.

 

[Brian]

It would work fine. But...if you're like us, and you have a compost pile which everything gets thrown into (including chicken poop), then it really doesn't matter as the compost gets added to the garden beds in the Spring anyway.

What a lot of people I know do is this: during the winter when the garden is fallow, you can let your chickens into that fenced area for the day. They get to pick, scratch, debug, etc. In the Spring, you turn over your soil and add in the compost.

 

[Meesh]

How cool that you posted it - that's almost exactly what I'm planning to do! We have a big fenced garden that is mostly unused, it seemed like the perfect chicken spot.

I also want to take advantage of cover cropping to keep the weeds down, which will provide forage for the chickens.

I am also getting ready to build a movable hoop house that can double as a greenhouse during the growing seasons, and then in winter I can use it to give the chickens a covered run. I just ordered the metal bender to build the hoop house yesterday.

Dunno if it will all work out, but it's so nice to see that it's not just my crackpot idea. Someone else is a crackpot, too!

Cheers,
Michelle

 

[homefarm]

looks like it will work i knew a old timer john sullivan he said chickens are good for the garden he us to do somthing like this he's gone now he was in his 90's.... what about adding a small greenhouse to it on the south?....homefarm....