Chicken Food Tower

[Phaedra Geiermann]

08.23 Update for Chicken Food Tower No.1~6

As it keeps raining, yes, I saw in news that we have 35% more rain till now than last year, it's not bad, but sometimes it's really enough to have non-stop rainy weather.

Anyway, that's good for plants, no matter they are in horizontal or vertical environments.


No.1, which just been destoryed by one young cockerel, that flied onto the top and ate everything, I planted some more peas (for shoots), carrot tops and some oilseed radish. They are germinated well.

No.2 Mainly wheat grass - not only chickens, our dogs and cats love them, super welcome. I just harvested and gave chickens as treats.

No.3 Steady growth for strawberries, mints and lavender, also some green beans, carrot tops and recycled leek - well, isn't it nice to enjoy some fresh growth inside the chicken run

No.4: The temporarily fostered tree (grows really well, a lot of new leaves) and some mixed veggie seedlings

In another run~~

No.5: spinach, oilseed radish, grass, lamb lettuce, growing very well, the hens here enjoy the young, juicy and tender salat-level treats all the time.

The lower deck of No.5 has only grass, so it looks a bit funny

Hens also get their fun and food here, but as they can't scratch, they won't kill everything.

No.6, which is finished just recently, the 3 different mints look happy staying here. Quite active germination from alfalfa and red clover.

 

[N F C]

They're all looking really good @Phaedra Geiermann!

 

[lauraschicks]

leaves, grass clipping, whatever chicken can't consume fully (like the hard stem of vegetable), melon peel, chicken manure, and etc - i did mention in earlier post that these will be helpful as they contain more moisture and good for facilitating bacterial decompostion.

Putting big wood chips/branches in the center is a good idea, as long as it didn't occupy too much volume. The food tower for chicken is to recycle the garden waste and create a vertical foraging alternative. Besides what are planted on the top and most upper 10% surface, all other will be quickly consumed by chicken as micro greens.

However, it's a good strategy to improve the production performance of a vertical planter for leafy greens (not for chicken).

Yeah, I was too quick to chime in. Some points were made that I hadn't seen yet. But I was thinking more of maintaining moisture on the inside of the bin/tower, rather than producing veges. I would think it would help on the semi-self watering aspect with grass or microgreens for chickens or veges/greens for people. A lot of raised beds can dry out to quickly in hot climates. I currently have raised beds that are a combination of Hugelkultur, Back to Eden, Lasagna...a little bit of all 3. Trying to figure out which works best here... This year we've been getting the over abundance of rain instead of the drought conditions we usually have. The raised bed helps with that. I haven't been able to keep up with the overgrowth this year since nothing is dried out nor drowning. You have to be careful what you ask for...

 

[Phaedra Geiermann]

09.12 Update

As the plants in the chicken food tower would be gradually consumed, re-planting is necessary. In August I propagated from runners or cuttings some more strawberries, mint, basil, scallions and carrot tops. The roots show those young plants are ready for transplanting now.

I harvested everything on the top of tower n1 and n2 as Sunday bonus for the chickens, and then added more compost.

I also added some grass clippings (which already stayed on the ground for few days and dried) as mulch. Now the updated tower n1 has young strawberries on the top.

Tower n2 has mint, basil, scallion and strawberry on the top.

Tower n4, I removed the temporarily fostered young Persimmon tree. Although it grows much better than I expected, eventually it should be planted somewhere else. Then lavender and strawberry, some veggies seeds are planted on the top.

Tower n3 has propagated plants (strawberry, leek, mint) on the top, nothing is damaged so far. Therefore it remains as it is. Two green beans are about to flower.

 

[N F C]

Thanks for the update @Phaedra Geiermann, everything looks great!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

This thread inspired me to make my own chicken tower. Its about 3' tall, roughly 3' dia - which helps with humidity control. Mine hasn't really greened up, however, so no photos yet. I almost certainly should have deposited more seeds - the chickens tend to destroy the sprouts before more than a couple have appeared.

Also, I filled it "haphazardly", layers of weeds and dirt from the run which had been washed into the depression I use for excess raifall management. It has to be periodically dug back out, the tower seemed good use for that highly nitrogen enriched soil (since the chicken droppings are washed in, too!)

 

[Phaedra Geiermann]

09.17 Update

N1~N4 keep growing, so let's see how are N5 and N6 in another run doing. There are 5 adult hens in this run. They didn't put so much attention on the food towers, although they did consume whatever they can reach. Therefore, both towers has quite nice growth compared with N1~4.

N5
Residents on the top floor: Lamb lettuce, spinach, mizuna, radish, swiss chard, and even a sunflower

Although N5~N6 are located where almost no direct sunlight, leafy greens can still grow very well. The growth on N5 top is very impressive - I can even harvest some for myself from this one.

N6
Residents on the top floor: red clover, oil seed radish, alfalfa, and plus 3 different mints. Similar to the status on N3, mint enjoys such growing condition very well.

Besides extra food and fun, N5 and N6 become lovely spots in the run. Next week I will start piling up N7, and I will transplant some young Echinacea (coneflower), which I sowed from seeds this spring, on the top of N7.

I plant to set up totally 10 food towers in these two runs and the coming bachleor's pen. One of them will still locate in the shady area, but I have one Zepherine Drouhin rose, which accommodates shade very well. I will plant it on one of the tower top and see if it can be trained and climb on the hedge.

Besides food towers, this idea is also interesting and not complicate to work with. I soaked mixed wheat berries overnight, mixed them with compost and water, and then let them sit in the tray for days. They germinated and grew quite quickly, another treat for the chickens.

 

[Phaedra Geiermann]

0925 Update

I took a short video from the top of chicken food tower N5 (another coop), the main character today is so cute when she jumped and got some greens.

Some veggies from the top area of chicken food tower are so pretty, I can harvest them for myself

Besides Food Tower N7, I added a bigger one as a cold compost tower. As now it's the end of the summer, many green wastes can be collected from every corner in the garden. In two weeks about 100 sunflowers would be harvested, and all the seeds belong to chickens and some other birds in the garden.

 

[N F C]

0925 Update

I took a short video from the top of chicken food tower N5 (another coop), the main character today is so cute when she jumped and got some greens.

Some veggies from the top area of chicken food tower are so pretty, I can harvest them for myself
View attachment 2846144
View attachment 2846145

Besides Food Tower N7, I added a bigger one as a cold compost tower. As now it's the end of the summer, many green wastes can be collected from every corner in the garden. In two weeks about 100 sunflowers would be harvested, and all the seeds belong to chickens and some other birds in the garden.

View attachment 2846147

What a pretty girl in the video!

 

[U_Stormcrow]

Brief Detour - as regular readers here likely remember, Phaedre's efforts inspired me to make a Chicken Tower of my own, with resources I had on hand. As my climate is hotter, and sometimes much drier, I built a larger diameter (about 3' around), squater tower (about 3' tall) out of step in metal stakes and chicken wire, thinking the larger center would help to keep it from drying out so quickly, and also keep it from being washed away during persistent rainfal periods.

So...

1 - the chicken wire is not going to last - I really should use a piece of fencing, as Phaedre did, and T Posts. This will get me a season at best, by Spring, I expect to rebuild it better.

2 - while the larger size did help with days of constant rains, more than 2" per week, sometimes more than an inch in an hour, we've now been five days w/o rain, and its starting to show - the new sprouts are clearly stressed. I dog a hole in the middle, set a plastic 5 gal bucket into it, with holes drilled in the side, near the bottom, about 1/4" in dia. So I can now add 5 gal of water that will soak into the column without washing out new growth or simply running off the dry sandy top. Will let you know how its going in another week or so - we are expecting no rain for at least another 8-10 days.

...and back to the main event!