Growing Grass in the Run

[HoopyFrood]

JT keep both! The more area that’s green the better right!?!

I like the idea of reusing scraps! It will save you some $$$$ and will keep the ware down. I’ve got big plans and I’d love to find a source like that.

Our lead is a local/regional alternative energy contractor (does residential to large-scale commercial - not industrial - solar and wind system installations). A 100-foot long scrap of vinyl coated HW cloth 18" high is worthless to them. Yet that one scrape can create a skirt to keep voles and shrews out of my whole chicken run/garden! And that was just a small portion of what we scrounged.

If you can find someone like that, you're golden! Another perk from them: all the free brand new pallets we can handle!

 

[jthornton]

JT keep both! The more area that’s green the better right!?!

The reason I want the along the fence line is to open up the yard and still give them plenty to pick at. Also to block the underside of the fence in some areas. So I'll convert the 2' ones to 1'.

JT

 

[jthornton]

I'm also going to try to make some larger frames: maybe 4' x 8' (with cross members to support the HW cloth, then maybe lay some 6" boards across it once the cover is established so the chickens can forage from the middle a little bit and not just the perimeter?

For something that big think about how your going to walk on it to do routine cleaning and maintenance. The pullets do scratch a lot of stuff from the yard on top of the grass boxes that has to be cleaned off.

JT

 

[mike1970]

cover it so they can only eat down to like 2 inches

 

[HoopyFrood]

For something that big think about how your going to walk on it to do routine cleaning and maintenance. The pullets do scratch a lot of stuff from the yard on top of the grass boxes that has to be cleaned off. JT

Good point! Having no experience with them (yet) I'd hope a broom could do most of the job. But I'll probably just mount some sticks on the frame as handles so they can easily be picked up, tipped up, moved, etc. I've used a bunch to make a kind of ladder system to get up to the nest boxes (which works quite well). I think they'd make decent enough handles for moving a garden frame.

I have a gate in between the run and garden so when I need to do maintenance in one or the other without, as @rosemarythyme put it so eloquently, "feathered footballs" underfoot - I can just lock the girls in the opposite area while I work

 

[jthornton]

I finished up a couple of the new grass boxes yesterday just in time to get a 1/4" of light rain on them.



JT

 

[HoopyFrood]

I took a while to get here, but finally I did. Here is my first "grass box" - we've taken to calling them "chicken shields"

Made out of reclaimed pallet wood (3 1/2") and reclaimed vinyl coated 1/2" hardware cloth. It's about 30 sq ft, but it's lightly built and probably only weighs 30 lbs.


I made several "catwalks" on the top so the girls don't have to walk on the hardware cloth to mow what grows through it. Some girls stick mostly to the wood. The daredevils walk all over it not minding the cloth one bit

With the addition of some tiny circular fences we're raising shrubs, clovers, creeping thyme and a few other things. I'll probably seed some fescues under it as well.



Just finished it and installed it today. Should be interesting to see how it works! And better late than never

 

[jthornton]

It will be interesting to see if you have a sagging problem with a big one like that. My 2' x 4' sag in the middle when several pullets are on it at once.

JT

 

[HoopyFrood]

It will be interesting to see if you have a sagging problem with a big one like that. My 2' x 4' sag in the middle when several pullets are on it at once.

JT

Time will tell! I tensioned the HWC pretty tightly before clamping it down. Also, though it's hard to see in the pics, but that single "catwalk" running vertically in the first pics is covering a support where the edges of the two 3-ft wide pieces of HWC overlap.

So it does sag a little, but not too much. Yet I haven't seen more than one bird on it at a time. Our largest bird is probably 9 pounds. She walked on the HWC and handled the "give" quite well. Now if we get all five at once? Dunno.

If it happens I'll post an update here!

 

[JMotuzick]

Adding a rock or a brick under the low spot should make it the high spot!