- Thread starter
- #231
Since starting this thread, I have discovered many limitations. FIgure all the ideas I can cross off my list will lead me to what will work. My land is too rough to run a tractor. The 4 x 12 had many gaps here and there that didnt keep in the adults. THe hens crouched low to squease out. That sits empty but has a solid floor under it now for future use.I know it's not a foraging time of year--at least here between Lake Ontario and the Adirondacks where the high today is below zero and falling. But it is the time of year when I have time for reading, gathering information, planning. So here are my questions for this thread--
Anyone using chicken tractors? How big for how many birds? What breeds? how often moved and over what kind of ground?
What do you grow to feed your chickens? What feed do you buy?
I did invest some time reading Salatins books. Many good ideas there. Or at least inspiration.
Built several big coops, large enough to keep them penned. Thank goodness as we are 10 inches shy of beating the record for snow. DH broke out the snow shoes to break paths. lol
Bought good buckeyes last spring. Great foragers. SPread far and wide. ONly lost 2 to a coon that reached into their coop. Coyote are less apparent this year. No sightings.
Putting up a strange fencing. CUtting down trees, limbing it and tiying the trunk up to live trees in the fence line. THe brush gets dropped on the otherside. Coyote cannot get thru or get over. ( DH does the work usually in the winter, so this is on hold til snow melts.)
Atill feeding commercial pellets. Yet to see how much I can grow. Tried corn and squash but too many trees still block the sun. That was a dismal failure. THe land here is uncultivated. Never plowed. Tree been cut over time to time, so many youngish trees to make poles of. Many oak tress. ENough to sacrifice a few. Hurts but need to get the soil some sunlight.
WIll be slow, trial and error , to get enough produce to feed us and the chooks.