Chickens for brush clearing

[Isabella6Storm4]

I've cleared brushy areas with chickens. They turn everything into dirt usually in the span of a month but idk how thick your stuff is. They do a very good job though. You just have to seed it after and keep on top of it or everything will come back

I have several acres of poison oak, thorny brambles, and dense thicket. I know a lot of people use goats for clearing brush, but I don't really want goats.

So... Chickens are good at killing established plants. Has anyone used a movable fence for chicken-brush-clearing? I'm not sure I can even get a fence in, due to all the thick brush.

 

[GCrumb]

I don't get it...

In Lonesome Dove a Larry McMurtry novel and teevee mini-series and one of the greatest Westerns ever, the two retired Texas Rangers have this barren little 'cattle company.' There is much argument over the sign that Gus makes for them, because it includes "We Don't Rent Pigs" and an incoherent Latin motto that nobody knows the meaning of.

 

[fat brown hen]

In Lonesome Dove a Larry McMurtry novel and teevee mini-series and one of the greatest Westerns ever, the two retired Texas Rangers have this barren little 'cattle company.' There is much argument over the sign that Gus makes for them, because it includes "We Don't Rent Pigs" and an incoherent Latin motto that nobody knows the meaning of.

Blasphemy! Lonesome Dove was one of my favorite books back in college, and Gus McCrae would surely have called it a shoat.

 

[fat brown hen]

I've cleared brushy areas with chickens. They turn everything into dirt usually in the span of a month but idk how thick your stuff is. They do a very good job though. You just have to seed it after and keep on top of it or everything will come back

Well that makes one person. How big was the area and how many chickens? My stuff varies in thickness, I have everything from annual weeds to woody brush.

 

[GCrumb]

Blasphemy! Lonesome Dove was one of my favorite books back in college, and Gus McCrae would surely have called it a shoat.

He wrote the sign, though. Hehe, read it again, it's so great. A shoat is a hog under a year old, the text calls one of Gus's pigs "the shoat" and the other "the gilt" (a female hog that's never had a litter.)

 

[fat brown hen]

He wrote the sign, though. Hehe, read it again, it's so great. A shoat is a hog under a year old, the text calls one of Gus's pigs "the shoat" and the other "the gilt" (a female hog that's never had a litter.)

Flipping through it now, and you're right :b My memory sure is bad. Why on earth would anyone keep a hog for more than a year

 

[GCrumb]

To breed them? I can't imagine any other reason. My parents instilled in me a healthy fear of pigs, they will knock you down and eat you. The most unforgivable thing in Unforgiven is him leaving those children alone with those pigs, utterly horrifying. I am not at all trusting of pigs. Hogs, really full-grown pigs, are enormously bigger than any pig you ever see in movies, even when the pigs in the movies are supposed to be eating people.

They would do a wizard job of clearing brush, but while goats are supposedly immune to poison ivy, who knows if pigs are? I'd hate to be subjected to the sound of a pig with poison ivy.

 

[GCrumb]

Flipping through it now, and you're right :b My memory sure is bad. Why on earth would anyone keep a hog for more than a year

By the way, to further tangentialize, there are two Lonesome Dove prequel novels and one sequel one. They've got continuity errors and are not the masterpeice that is Lonesome Dove, but they're a good time. And have their own little mini-series' too.

 

[fat brown hen]

To breed them? I can't imagine any other reason. My parents instilled in me a healthy fear of pigs, they will knock you down and eat you. The most unforgivable thing in Unforgiven is him leaving those children alone with those pigs, utterly horrifying. I am not at all trusting of pigs. Hogs, really full-grown pigs, are enormously bigger than any pig you ever see in movies, even when the pigs in the movies are supposed to be eating people.

They would do a wizard job of clearing brush, but while goats are supposedly immune to poison ivy, who knows if pigs are? I'd hate to be subjected to the sound of a pig with poison ivy.

We have actual feral pigs here. Not in my yard, but they have come through the neighborhood. They're kinda scary cuz they run in packs and have tusks. Apparently they're impossible to eradicate; they're so mean and tough that even mountain lions won't mess with them-- OH that would actually make them ideal for brush clearing! just put out a few calf-huts and let 'em have at it. My neighbors would probably kill me if the pigs don't do it first.

 

[Isabella6Storm4]

Well that makes one person. How big was the area and how many chickens? My stuff varies in thickness, I have everything from annual weeds to woody brush.

I use two lengths of Premier 1 electric poultry netting, which is 164' around and I have about 35 chickens
Edit: I just rotate/move them once the area is cleared to my liking.