Growing grass

[Suzierd]

I'm making the wood boxes with screen over them to plant grass in for my chickens. Do I need to by organic grass? Where do I find it? And what kind of Organic soil do you use to put in it? Thanks for any tips.

 

[aart]

Not sure you need 'organic soil'......
.....but you wouldn't want to use any bagged soil that has fertilizers, fungicides, or pesticides in it.

Can't you just plant in the soil that where you plan to put your grazing frames?

Same goes with grass seed, many are treated with who knows what, I'd avoid any 'lawn grass' seed.
But there are other plant seeds you can use for poultry feed plants.
I just plant grains from the food co-op where I can buy from bulk as much as I need.....mostly wheat to grow for the chooks.

There are other places you can buy seed blends especially marketed to backyard chicken keepers.

 

[chickensfinally]

For my chicken planters I used a clover mix (no grass at all, I don't think) that I got from Tractor supply in the deer hunting aisle. It"s for attracting the "big bucks" or some such. Since my chickens go mostly for the clover when they get out of their run that's what I planted. hope this helps. Carrie

 

[Ridgerunner]

What is your native grass? If you just build the frame and do nothing else, what variety of grass or weeds will grow? Are they varieties they will eat? That’s not necessarily an easy question to answer but I can’t think of anything that is likely to grow better than the plants that are native to your region. There are all kinds of plants you could grow in there, not all of them grasses, but for sustainability how can you top native plants? The problem is that they don’t necessarily eat all of them. Or if this area is part of your lawn, will they eat the grasses that are already growing there. They will eat most lawn grasses.

What’s wrong with the soil that’s there now? Will it grow plants? To make a rational recommendation I’d want to know what you have there now. It may be fine. The odds are pretty good all you need to do is incorporate some compost if you need to do anything at all. I believe anyone that has chickens should have a compost pile going anyway. You are recycling the chicken poop and creating a valuable commodity, compost, even if you don’t use it for anything other than leveling out holes in your yard. It’s really valuable in a garden or landscaping bed.

“Organic” can be a sensitive subject but I don’t see why this has to be any more organic than the rest of their run. They are going to be eating dirt and getting grit from the rest of the run. Unless you are positioned on a superfund site your areas is probably pretty close to organic anyway. Just don’t add nasty stuff to it and nature will clean it up pretty quickly. To me, organic is more of a way of life than following a set of rules.

 

[chickensfinally]

“Organic” can be a sensitive subject but I don’t see why this has to be any more organic than the rest of their run. They are going to be eating dirt and getting grit from the rest of the run. Unless you are positioned on a superfund site your areas is probably pretty close to organic anyway. Just don’t add nasty stuff to it and nature will clean it up pretty quickly. To me, organic is more of a way of life than following a set of rules.

The original question was about organic seed, I think because they put all kids of chemicals in grass seed now ( I can't even walk down those aisles at big box stores.) Your question is valid about what is already there. if they have not already completely denuded their run it may be possible to just put the box down and let the grass already there grow some, protected under it. Mine will eat grass, but prefer clover, that's why I got the deer buffet seed. It was not treated seed so that was good.

 

[Suzierd]

Thanks for the replys, I have one of my screened boxes done and plan on making a couple more, I took your advice and just used the dirt around here it was very hard and dry but I managed to get some where the rodents had been digging in the ground and where I had watered. I even stuck some clumps of grass in to see if it will grow while I wait for my seed. This is what I ordered.

Non-GMO seed.
Includes: Ryegrass, Buckwheat, Forage Peas, Flax, Millet, Red Clover and Alfalfa Seed.
A special blend of crops that chickens absolutely love.
Made by Homesteader Hobbies.
5 lbs. will cover 1,000 square feet.