chicken moat, anyone else have one?

[LaSombra]

wow, never thought of doing something like that! The only thing is that we wouldn't be able to get the tractor in there to disc the ground in the spring

Then again, would we even need to do that if the chickens were in there periodically??

Thanks for posting. Great idea!

 

[Gwen]

LaSombra, You certainly wouldn't need to get the tractor into the moat area as that would be only for the chickens. Did you mean get the tractor into the garden? I have two gates going into my garden - one is a walk thru and the other is large enough to be a tractor through. I'm putting my moal to run along three sides of the garden and each end is right at a gate. So it basically runs between the two gates.

I have completely redone my garden this year and turned it into a 'potager' and don't plan to till it anymore.

I brought in composted manure and built up the soil in the areas I planted in. At some point I may line them with either boxwood to define them or bricks or something but for now the soil is just mounded.

My plan is to add to the soil every year with my own compost. And I'm hoping to be able to have a chicken tractor that I can move among the paths. The chickens will then weed, till, and fertilize for me and at the beginning of planting, I can scoop some of that nice tilled path dirt up onto the planting beds.

Even without chickens in there, I wouldn't till. I would keep the paths weeded and then bring in compost and add to the planting beds as needed. It really keeps the weeds down if you don't till the ground, which exposes weed seeds to light. I have friends who have been using this method for years with great results.

Here is a not-to-scale diagram of my potager garden. The overall size is roughly 40x60 but one of the 40' sides and one of the 60' side are slightly shorter.

 

[NCricky]

will the chickens eat the plants , like orka, squash, water melon, peppers, tomatos:/?

 

[guesswhatchickenbutt]

faykokoWV - I've been interested in this since I read about it on Mother Earth News. I even blogged about chicken moats a couple of weeks ago...

I have some questions if you're up for it.

1) How do you get in there and rake out the chicken poo?

2) Doesn't the poo stink overwhelm you?

3) What sort of wire do you use?


My chickens have a coop, but I put them into a moveable chicken run in the daytime. By the end of the day their run smells to high heaven! The flies are all over and the poop smell is pretty strong. That's after only 1 day in the run. It's not a big deal because at night I put them in their coop and the next day I move their run a few feet down in the yard so they get a clean spot.

 

[Gwen]

You only have 3 chickens and they make that much of a smell? Wow. I have not got my chickens outside yet, they're still babies in the brooder.

But I've been to other people's places who do have runs and one who has a moat even smaller than the one I've put in and I have not noticed any bad smells, flies, etc. This was not something that had even occurred to me, and I don't want to hear it! I hate it when my plans have unforseen flaws!!

What kind of moveable run do you have?

 

[guesswhatchickenbutt]

Quote:
Just a hoop run, but keep in mind I live in Florida. This time of year the temperature is in the high 90s with high 80s at night and the humidity is off the charts. Everything is hot, swampy and gross. Welcome to sunny Florida.

 

[Gwen]

The reason I ask is because there are some parts of my potager where I don't think a tractor will fit. So I was thinking to put in some kind of moveable run and have not really figured that part out yet. Do you have any photos of your hoop one?

 

[guesswhatchickenbutt]

Quote:
Gwen - here are photos with links to the plans (from a fellow BYCer) http://gardeningwithoutskills.blogspot.com/2009/04/chicken-run-building-chicken-tractor.html

The chickens are MUCH bigger than in the pics on that link though. The run is working out GREAT and was very easy to build.

 

[faykokoWV]

Quote:
I have some questions if you're up for it.

1) How do you get in there and rake out the chicken poo?

no problems with the poo yet in the run, I guess it sort of just soaks into the dirt and its a big enough area it doesn't seem to be a problem with the 9 chickens I have in there now. When my 11 chicks are big enough to put in, then it may be a problem. We made it wide enough so we can get the garden tiller into the run and through the double gates into the garden. We'd just have to take the bird netting down to till the run. our plan is to just till the run as needed if the poo gets too bad.

2) Doesn't the poo stink overwhelm you?

We're a cooler climate than Florida so that may be the difference, but there doesn't seem to be any smell at all. We're using deep litter method in the coop itself along with DE under the roost. That seems to be taking care of it in there. I don't know if soil type makes any difference either, but we have clay soil with a high acidity level, maybe it neutralizes the ammonia smell?

3) What sort of wire do you use?

We used 4 foor tall 2x4 inch welded wire fencing

Hope that answers your question. I'm trying to get my husband to sit down and write out all the steps he took to make it so I can share it. Again, I'm really proud of what he did.

Hope this helps and I'm glad to answer any questions

 

[LaSombra]

Quote:
That would be nice not to have to till the soil

I didn't mean to take the tractor in the moat but the garden itself. Our garden isn't huge or anything. How wide did you build the moat/run, by the way? I was thinking something like about 3 ft wide would probably make the chickens happy