The idea is to create a closed half tunnel using some wire fencing material or chicken wire folded over and growing chicken fodder in it (e.g. oats, barley, various greens, etc). The tunnel would be small enough (maybe 2 ft in diameter) to allow chickens to peck at the greenery inside through the fencing, but large enough that they couldn't peck at the base of the plants or scratch at the roots. Basically it's a chicken tunnel, except the chickens don't go in it -- only the plants do.
First of all, welcome to the BYC forums
On growing fodder:
Thanks to
@WannaBeHillBilly for alerting me to this thread. Fodder options are one of my favorite topics as I live in northern Minnesota and we have about 6 months of the year where green grass is covered by white snow. I am successfully growing fodder inside my spare bathroom this winter and my girls are getting fresh green barley grass everyday. I think it's good to give the chickens some green food during the cold frozen winter months.
I don't know where you live (please update your location), but if you are interested in growing winter fodder for your chickens you could check out the link provided by
@WannaBeHillBilly and/or also take a look at my thread
Don't tell the wife, I'm growing fodder in the 2nd bathroom! The thread was quite popular for a while and has almost 500 posts, but if you just read a small portion of the posts you might get some ideas on how to grow fodder inside, in the winter, and give your chickens a nice lushous green treat everyday.
On a chicken tunnel idea:
More to your point about growing fodder out in the chicken run, that is a great idea and one that I am also knocking around in my head for next summer. I have seen YouTube videos on variations of your Chicken Tunnel fodder idea. The approach I liked best is when they put something like your Chicken Tunnel alongside the perimeter fencing, because it minimizes the space lost to the chickens in the run. Another approach is to make round, wire planters for fodder and spread them around the run. Kind of like food islands that can be enjoyed by the chickens.
Grazing frames and boxes:
I am partial to the grazing frame, grazing boxes, feeding frames idea. Depending on what the floor of your chicken run is, you can plant some grains under the grazing frame and either just let it grow like that, or move the frame every so often and grow the fodder in another location.
There is an added bonus to the grazing frame concept. I made a soil/compost sifter to fit my tow behind garden dump cart last spring. When I got my chicks in early spring, I used the 3X4 foot garden cart as a brooder in my garage and just flipped the sifter frame upside down to make a cover for the cart. Worked excellent to brood my 10 chicks in the garage for the first 8 weeks. After I was done brooding the chicks, I could use the sifter to sift compost for the garden. Since it fits perfectly into my garden dump cart, I just shovel the compost into the frame and sift it right into the dump cart. Big time saver. This coming summer, I plan on using that same sifter as a grazing feeder in the chicken run because they now have eaten all the grass down to the dirt. That's 3 different possible uses for just the effort of 1 frame!
The fodder table idea:
I had never heard of a fodder table. I watched the video, and it is interesting. It offers a couple advantages I can see in that it increases your run area by elevating the food above the chicken run floor, and it provides shades under the table which lots of us need in our runs.
Having said that, I can see a number of problems with the fodder table built in that YouTube video. First of all, the size is too big for anything I would want to put in my run. I do lots of Square Foot Gardening, and I can tell you that the maximum distance an average sized person can reach comfortably is about 2 feet in the frame. She built that fodder table 6x7 feet, and there is no way you are ever going to tend the growing plants over that distance, unless you plan on getting up on top of the table and into the dirt in the middle. There is no way you would be able to move that fodder table once built without tearing it all down.
Elevated planter idea instead of a fodder table:
Another problem with the fodder table idea presented in that video is that elevated planters dry out rather quickly. If you plan on watering the fodder table all summer, then I guess it would not be a problem. However, for me, that's just more work that I don't wont to add to my life. Seeds planted into the ground under a grazing frame would take a lot less extra care because the ground dirt would not dry out as fast. Again, depending on where you live.
If you do like the concept of a fodder table, then I would suggest consider building an elevated sub-irrigated planter. I have built three 2x4 foot elevated planters for our decks and they work great. Basically, you build a planter box up on legs, line the inside with waterproof plastic at least 6 inches deep, put down some 4 inch perforated drain hose on the bottom, and fill the planter up with compost. You drill an overflow hole about 3 1/2 inches above the bottom. That insures you always have at least a 1/2 inch air gap between the pool of water in the drain hose and the compost/soil. If you don't have an air gap, the soil will get saturated after a heavy rain and the roots of anything growing in the planter will drown. I typically only have to water my planters once a month during the growing season. If my math is close, there is just over 13 gallons of water in the bottom resevior when filled. My elevated planters on my deck produce more food than I get from my garden.
Sorry for the extremely long post, but your question is one I have been also thinking about for some time and have actually done some experiments on to see what works for me. I know it's hard to read long posts, but I had too much to say. Again, welcome to the BYC fourms and hope to hear more from you on this and other topics.
