Chickens in the garden over winter? Will it kill my soil?

[teamcarp33]

I have a small chicken tractor that I use on top of my garden beds in late summer/fall and into early winter. Chickens take care of the spent plants for me and eat lots of grubs etc. in winter I do the deep litter method in the bigger coop that the chickens use once it gets cold and during the growing season when I don't want my garden eaten. By spring the bedding is pretty composted down and doesn't smell of ammonia at all do I dig it into the garden soil along with other compost (leaves and scraps the chickens don't want) that I piled up the previous growing season. Works great!

 

[teamcarp33]

During the summer the deep litter method isn't so great so when I'm cleaning the coop that bedding goes into the pile to compost until the next spring

 

[PheasantsFirst]

We let our chickens in the garden every winter. We put them in after the first freeze and kick the out in mid march. We also add a ton of horse manure throughout the winter. But if you use raised beds the will kick the dirt out.

 

[waldeneffect]

Chickens can be very destructive to a garden.

The only way we allow it is in a contained tractor so we can control where the forage.

They are especially disrespectful of mulch, which often hides the treats they long for.

Here's a blog post that sums up our new policy on chickens in the garden.

http://www.avianaquamiser.com/posts/Letting_chickens_graze_in_the_woods/

 

[RaZ]

Chickens can be very destructive to a garden.

It is very simple.
Don't allow the chickens to forage in an active garden.
Let them work the soil before planting and then after harvest. They will do a lot of tilling and fertilizing for you.

My garden is in the chicken run that I have surrounded by portable fencing. After harvest, the chickens get the leftovers. The fencing goes back up before sowing in the spring. An annual soil analysis from the state university extension shows that my garden soil is very good.

 

[littlelizzy123]

This will be my first spring with the chickens, and I only have 6. I am planning on building a fence around the garden boxes (horrid granite-filled sandy Colorado nasty soil over here). I had the chickens out free ranging during the day at the tail end of the season. They left the squashes themselves alone but nibbled on the leaves. They devoured the carrot tops and any greens that had bolted (which was fine with me since they were so bitter). The perennial flowers they left alone. The tomatoes they went crazy for, but I tend to grow indeterminate varieties that grow ridiculously tall, so I train them up a 6ft trellis, so there was plenty for everyone. I took the tomatoes up high, and they took the tomatoes down low. However, toward the end, they used the soil under the plants for bathing, and there were large divots next to the plants. By that time, the plant roots were a good inch around and woody as a shrub, so it didn't bother them, but they would have wreaked havoc on baby plants. I have no doubt they would have dug up and eaten every single transplant I put out.

Now, in the winter, they are going over everything with a fine tooth comb, eating any left over bugs, pooping their poop all over, and it is a good thing. I really don't think you need to worry about there being too much poop. It will have aged all winter, the snow and rain breaking it down. I would take them out of the garden a few weeks before you plant though.

 

[Alaskan]

This will be my first spring with the chickens, and I only have 6. I am planning on building a fence around the garden boxes (horrid granite-filled sandy Colorado nasty soil over here). I had the chickens out free ranging during the day at the tail end of the season. They left the squashes themselves alone but nibbled on the leaves. They devoured the carrot tops and any greens that had bolted (which was fine with me since they were so bitter). The perennial flowers they left alone. The tomatoes they went crazy for, but I tend to grow indeterminate varieties that grow ridiculously tall, so I train them up a 6ft trellis, so there was plenty for everyone. I took the tomatoes up high, and they took the tomatoes down low. However, toward the end, they used the soil under the plants for bathing, and there were large divots next to the plants. By that time, the plant roots were a good inch around and woody as a shrub, so it didn't bother them, but they would have wreaked havoc on baby plants. I have no doubt they would have dug up and eaten every single transplant I put out.

Now, in the winter, they are going over everything with a fine tooth comb, eating any left over bugs, pooping their poop all over, and it is a good thing. I really don't think you need to worry about there being too much poop. It will have aged all winter, the snow and rain breaking it down. I would take them out of the garden a few weeks before you plant though.

wonderful to hear your experience.

Did you manage to harvest any carrots, with them eating up the tops?

 

[littlelizzy123]

The carrots were a loss. However, I think it was a little too hot for them anyway in the place I had them. I will move them to a little more shady spot next time.