Chicken coop and garden combo?

[zookeeper15133]

You could also build narrow, long cages/runs to fit between your rows. Let the girls take turns in there and move it a row over every day. It doesn't need to be very tall. Think PVC pipe.

 

[Fenika]

I saw one coop on the coop page that had a regular run on one end and a run with a garden on the other (or am I thinking of someone that just had two runs on either end so they could rotate??!)

But you could do that and put the garden on the south or east side. You can put in stuff that chickens don't bother, take your chances with stuff they do like (especially if it is easy to cover like with a hoop house cold frame that you slide over before letting the chickens out).

Also, guinea fowl are great in the garden and don't scratch anywhere near as much as chickens, particularly in bigger areas. (My 5 week old keets in a 4x6 tractor seemingly scratch A LOT!

)

 

[Needycowgirl]

My coop and run are at one shady end of my fenced in garden. I find that my 9 girlys like to get out in the afternoon, and it seems they stick to the fence edges. They dont like it for the 3 or so weeks that they have to wait for the plants to establish. I will say they LOVE new corn, so next year I will throw up a temp chicken wire fence to keep them out of it. All the other plants they pretty much left alone. I do like the fact that they kill bugs like crazy! Oh and my tomatoes and strawberries are in a greenhouse to keep them out of those too.
I love the fact that they eat weeds like they are CANDY...lol

 

[torrelee]

I have my two 3 month old silkie d'uccle crosses in my garden as I am a little worried to let them out with the big girls. I was digging up potatos today and looked over to find them pecking a bite out of each strawberry in the row.... forget eating the hole thing, just a bite. They also ate the middle out of the one cuke that was big enough to eat, but not toooo much damage so far. They are super small and feather footed though, if I unleashed an australorp in there it'd be demolished in an hour.

 

[saltnprepper]

I have always thought about a fenced in garden spot, attached to the coop or run, so that the chickens could be fenced OUT in the spring and harvest time, but given access after harvest and through the winter. The chickens would fertilize and till the soil and it would be easy to dump bedding there in the fall so it could age before spring. Just a thought...

I have an article just for this this. a coop is in the front center of a rectangle piece of land they have pop doors that face out to two side planting areas. What they do is plant Section A in spring and summer in odd years and open the coop doors out to the Section B area to allow the chicken to poop and stir in fertilizer for that season while pecking on the old left behind stuff from after the crop was harvested. Switch the chicken yard to access A once the final harvest is done to get the work on fertilizing that land and scratching going to break it all down for next springs planting. Off the back side of the coop is an area to shovel compost from the coop and it has fenced access to make it easy to keep animals out but gates allow wheel barrows through. Fruit trees across the back and sides of the whole area ground and raised beds all planted by deisgn to allow for the most from the space planting lower growing under higher ones. Also growing up the wire of the coop for beans and peas and other vines the chickens will get a few from the bottom but that is really just a bit of pruning for the better higher up ones that you will harvest. You could even work a bunny farm into that easily