Gardening with chickens (and other poultry)

[SkyeSchazade]

hereorthere - I have heard that keeping guineas with chickens is a bad idea and that guineas will kill chickens. Don't know how true or not it is, but you might want to do plenty of research before you try.


Karen - I know the pain of chickenwire and t post monstrosities, we have had to put up a few to keep out chickens, dogs, turkeys and goats. Would very much enjoy some pictures!

 

[Lacy Blues]

Quote:


I guess I'm thinking about timing. If I planted a cover crop in the fall after harvest I'm not sure that there'd be time for the cover crop to grow, then in the spring put the chickens on it, then kill it off what remains with cardboard, and then plant. I'm in MI where the growing season for warm weather crops is late May to anytime after Sept so I need as early a start to the growing season as possible.

Daisy8s

I've been looking into cover crops and I have found two that would be really good. Buckwheat needs warmth and so is recommended for summer. Bellflower grows during the cold months and you til it in when spring arrives! Haven't done this yet, but it is on my list of things to do.

hereorthere... yes, you can house them together.

 

[Lacy Blues]

hereorthere - I have heard that keeping guineas with chickens is a bad idea and that guineas will kill chickens. Don't know how true or not it is, but you might want to do plenty of research before you try.

I've raised guineas with chickens and they got along fine. Then we sold about half of the guineas (couldn't take the noise). Still, they were ok. Then I sold all but 4 of the guineas and that is when the guineas started beating up the chickens. I think they thought that the chickens were killings off their friends.

Who can know the mind of a bird?

 

[Pyrates4Poultry]

Wow, I've had a blast with this thread! The entire reason I have birds is because of my gardens, (Or are the gardens for the birds? I forget) that and I'm a bird lover anyways. Don't those two things go hand in hand? I can't imagine having one without the other. We live on 29 acres of weeds in none other than Weed, California. The fences keep the plants contained and the birds have full reign otherwise daytimes and their choice of coops at night. (Spoiled babies!) We have a dozen turkeys and a dozen chickens and 8 turkey eggs in the bator. Having all of this tall grass around provides plenty of grasshoppers to drive this gardener crazy. The birds provide good fertilizer, insect repellent, meat and eggs. What's not to love?

 

[canesisters]

Yall are talking about chicken moats. There are a couple of really lovely plans hidden away somewhere on BYC.
Also, has Kassandra (sp?) chimed in on this yet? She's got a wonderful plan of rotating her crops and chickens so that they do the tilling prior to planting and cleaning up/composting after harvest.

 

[Mtn Laurel]

Our gal's are working on our fall garden now. We want to expand the fall garden a bit and have them in the area where it will be. They're doing the weed and grass removal, some pre-tilling, and a little bit of fertilizing. When they get that area bare, we'll move them to another spot that we want to expand and till the area they're now in. Will probably bring them back to the tilled area for grub and insect removal prior to planting for the fall.

Our fall plan is to move them into different sections of the garden as veggie production ends for "clean up". We then use green metal fencing stakes and 4 ft. tall plastic poultry netting to keep them in the area we want them to work in. The stakes and netting are easy to move and re-arrange for the next section.

We don't want them in the garden while it's actively growing as we don't want them to eat the veggies or destroy the plants. We have them assist us with before and after growing season chores. We do share veggies with them and they look forward to their morning cucumber treat but I'm not sharing the tomato's!

 

[Lacy Blues]

just moving this thread up on my list. I've tried to delete all the stuff I don't want to keep but it won't go away

 

[buckabucka]

just moving this thread up on my list.  I've tried to delete all the stuff I don't want to keep but it won't go away

 

Yeah, I wondered if there is a way to make the other stuff go away, too. I keep adding posts to the threads I am most interested in to move them up also. If someone knows of another method of sorting (or deleting), it would be good to know!

 

[wyoDreamer]

You can subscribe to a thread and then it will be listed on your home page.
As a bonus, you will get notifications if it has a new post also.

 

[amorrill]

Love this thread! I honestly got my girls as much for the poop as for the eggs, and was quoted saying that in the local paper, lol.