Garden and Chicken run

[Bulldog6]

I'm moving the chicken coop and the run. I have a garden that's about 60 x 60 and I'm thinking about moving the coop and run inside the garden. The coop will end up being about a 8x10 in the corner of the garden with the run being about 10x50. I figured if I can let them free range after were done with the garden that will work good for fertilizer and tilling the soil for me.

Is there any reason this wouldn't be good. Would it cause health issues with poop or anything being in the run close to the garden crops or should it be fine. I don't plan on letting them free range in the garden until the crops are harvested but just wanted to see if there was something that I was missing or hadn't thought about

Thanks.

 

[ElCerritoPlace]

We just tried that this summer, so far we haven't had a frost yet so they are still in their run mostly, but it seems to work. We've let them into the zucchini area since that was done and they cleaned that up nicely. I had also planted a cover crop of clover so they had that to graze on as well. How the fertilizing works long term, I can't speak for.

 

[Bulldog6]

Thanks for the response , what type of stuff did you grow next to the run. I've heard not to grow low veggies like lettuce next to the runs mostly to reduce chance of poop on the veggie and illness to the people and stuff. I also didn't want to grow corn or something to tall so I could see predators and stuff

 

[ElCerritoPlace]

We had to do some rearranging into the growing season. Originally I thought they could be in with the pumpkins and trellis, but then they had to be fenced out. So pumpkins and butternut squash on a trellis on the east side, sunflowers with pole beans on the south side to give shade and pole beans climbed up sunflowers. Needed a ladder or a really tall husband to pick the beans on top. But the shade idea worked really well.

On the west side was tomatoes with hog panel fencing and t-posts for plant support. Next year I need to move the panelling higher to support taller tomatoe growth. We had a strong storm that blew over the tops of the tomatoes and laid my ground cherries out flat. It made picking tomatoes tricky, unless you have small children, which worked well, but then all the tomatoes went in their belly and not in the bucket!

Frost last night so now the chickens are out cleaning up. Our fence is only 4 ft high around the garden but inside we had to make the fence 8 ft high and we clipped wings. Now I hope they all stay in or we'll be adding more fence. We had one predator issue, during migration this fall. Found one headless pullet in the run. That was almost a month ago, nothing since then or before. We have very sandy soil here so that's why we went with the chickens in the garden. Hope that helps!

 

[write2caroline]

My chickens ate everything in the garden in a couple of weeks leaving not one green thing. The perimeter fence was a schoolyard hurricane fence with the big holes and they would stick their heads out and eat all the lawn they could reach too so we had a bare patch about 3 inches out beyond the fence. You may want to plant for them and plant for you in a place you can protect from the chickens. They love to forage and are very good at it!

They will love your garden!

Caroline