Grass?

[crazymama4]

How much grass is necessary for chickens? Mine are in an enclosed coop/run, but have munced away at all the grass, not that there was much to begin with...my husband built the coop in a sandy section that used to be the kids play area when they were little...Can we throw in grass clippings? How much grass is necessary? Does anyone know of a grass variety that will grow in sandy conditions?

 

[turbodog]

Sure you can throw in fresh grass clippings! Mine like them. Throw in a handfull and see how much they eat.
Can't help ya about your sandy soil varieties question, sorry.

 

[7L Farm]

Is it sandy loam?

 

[teach1rusl]

If they are fed a formulated feed, technically no grass is necessary. But they sure do appreciate it!! Toss in grass clippings - there's really no such thing as too much - they'll eat what they want and leave the rest.

 

[BarefootMom]

there are posts here about people making raised beds for grass and putting chicken wire on top so the hens can eat the grass but not scratch in it.

That might be an alternative for you.

 

[GAchick]

Yeah, NO grass is going to grow for long where the chickens are in a confined space. They will eat, scratch up, dust bathe in, and generally destroy any vegetation. The wire covered grass growing boxes that were mentioned in a previous post are your best bet for live growing grass in your run. Basically a box, covered with wire, that the grass blades can grow up through for the chickens to eat. The wire keeps them from scratching the grass roots up. I would think a bottomless square made with 2x4's or even 1x4's if treated lumber, or cedar or other rot resistant wood would work fine. Maybe some compost or potting soil in the bottom, since you have sandy soil. Then staple or nail hardware cloth top the top edges. You can probably dig up grass in another part of the yard to transplant, if you don't have grass seeds..

 

[ll]

I bought this:

http://www.groworganic.com/omega-3-chicken-forage-blend-irrigated.html

and made this:

 

[JerseyHen]

We found an old tractor tire on the property when we cleared the area for the chicken coop (we found 68 truck tires too... guess people have been dumping here for a while), so I will be painting it, putting it in the run on its side, filling it with dirt, putting in pasture seed, covering it with hardware wire and screwing that to the tire, then put 2/6 boards in a frame around the top of the tire so they could sit on the planks and it keeps them from hurting themselves on the hardware wire edges (they will be under the boards). They can munch on it when it grows through the wire, but can't kill it because they can't get at the dirt. Looks kind of cool in the run too (we have all kinds of "found" farm items to hang on the coop from the ground clearing).

Raised bed using a recylcled tire... they are way too expensive to get rid of (the dump wanted over $100 to take it). It would be easy enough to do the same thing with landscape timbers or 2/4's for that matter. I will post a pic when it is done.

 

[wrldlygrrl]

I pull grass and chickweed daily to give my girls...they wait patiently for me to show up a couple of times a day with it...when they were young, I tore it into small pieces, now throw it in whole...and they love it!

 

[ThinkingChickens]

We're creating a simple food buffet with the chicken wire idea. I'm using a narrow wood planter box with hardware cloth on top (chicken wire let's them get down lower) and growing a mixture of grass, kitty greens (found in pet shops) and hoping weeds go ahead and grow too! Ha ha