- Nov 8, 2011
- 20
- 0
- 22
So we have a garden
thats the strange basis of all this. And what my wife was thinking was she wants some chickens and in looking around weve come across the Balfour method of keeping them.
The idea basically is you rotate the chickens around fixed runs and they fertilize as they eat and it all composts etc
Now Ive also read that chicken poop is hot when it comes to nitrogen and you have to let it compost really well before planting anything otherwise it will burn the roots and nothing grows.
So as someone with apparently too much time on his hands I have been trying to figure out what size these runs should be and how to actually make this all come together in a non-disastrous way.
Currently my idea is to have 8-ish chickens and a 4-door open air style coop 10x10 on wheels that I can move (think tractor) back and forth every year between 2 enclosed plots. Each of these plots will be divided into 4 sections that I can rotate the girls though. The one plot that does not house the coop will be used for the garden.
The idea being each fall we move the coop turn the soil and come spring the garden is a nice new plot of fertilized garden.
Has anyone actually done something like this success or failure; or is it one of these things that sounds great but in reality doesnt work?
The idea basically is you rotate the chickens around fixed runs and they fertilize as they eat and it all composts etc
Now Ive also read that chicken poop is hot when it comes to nitrogen and you have to let it compost really well before planting anything otherwise it will burn the roots and nothing grows.
So as someone with apparently too much time on his hands I have been trying to figure out what size these runs should be and how to actually make this all come together in a non-disastrous way.
Currently my idea is to have 8-ish chickens and a 4-door open air style coop 10x10 on wheels that I can move (think tractor) back and forth every year between 2 enclosed plots. Each of these plots will be divided into 4 sections that I can rotate the girls though. The one plot that does not house the coop will be used for the garden.
The idea being each fall we move the coop turn the soil and come spring the garden is a nice new plot of fertilized garden.
Has anyone actually done something like this success or failure; or is it one of these things that sounds great but in reality doesnt work?