how to repair a hard packed yard?

[hennyjenn]

We have a large fenced in area for our 10 hens, about 40'x80'. I thought it would be plenty big enough for them, but they have packed it down and pecked it clean. It is heavily shaded and was marginally green when we fenced it off last year, and the soil must have a lot of clay. We are planning to get a portable electric fence so we can move them around more easily. In the meantime, we have to try to repair the damage already done. Ideas on what to plant there? I guess we'll have to till the earth before we plant? Ugh, I wish we had just coughed up for the portable fence last year.

 

[Overeasyplz]

mulch and worms. try raking up the surface first. I'd get a soil test done too so you know what needs to be done.

 

[Nostalchic]

Seriously, I wouldn't even bother until you have another option for them, to remove them to another area while whatever you seed there has a chance to take hold. Chickens like white clover, and it will improve the soil, but if they are confined to it, even a large area like that in a wet and fertile place like IN (forget about it here!) they will busy themselves in destroying it.

 

[alexfrommaine]

Hennyjen, if you have access to tillage- make that your new vegetable garden! A year of aeration and manure (plus any bedding/litter from last year?) would make the fertility of that soil pretty fantastic.

If you're not too keen on the labor of vegetables, any pasture mix would work well. Lots of legumes like alfalfa or clovers have tap roots that can bust up pretty much any hard pan and wouldn't need to be tilled in. Run a rake over it to loosen up some soil particles, broadcast your seed (seed a little more than the recommended rate, i'd think), and rake it in lightly again to cover it with soil.


Or better yet, get a pig!

 

[CoyoteMagic]

Quote:
Split the run down the center. let the chickens have run of one side. Garden/farm in the other, Next year, switch.

 

[hennyjenn]

I think my neighbours would flip out if we got a pig. I dream of a cow someday, but that would only make my problems worse.

Sadly, it is too shady there to grow much, even grass and weeds, apparently. We'll get the portable fence to keep them elsewhere while we plant the old area and hope for the best, I guess.

Thanks!

 

[Chicken Boo]

Since it is "heavily shaded", a veggie garden would not work. Once you move the chickens, I would either till or rent an aerator. Then smooth/rake it out and plant shade plants, shade tolerant grass, or ground cover. If you are planning to put the chickens back in that spot later, do not put anything you care about and nothing poisonous to the chickies. Hostas are great shade-loving plants but the chickens will eat them to the ground. We have to net ours off if we want to see them as more than a little speck of green poking out of the dirt.

 

[patandchickens]

Yeah, there is truly nothing you can do in terms of planting until the chickens are out of there. And tilling would not be highly pointful either -- they'd just eat the worms and then pack it right back down again.

It *would* be worth adding some organic matter to get them started breaking it down, unless you tend to have a mud/smell problem already. If you can get old hay or straw, nontoxic garden weedings, last year's old leaves, etc etc just dump that in the chicken yard and let them scratch and spread it out and stomp it into little pieces.

Then when you CAN remove the chickens to elsewhere, till that all in with a bit of lime, let it rest a while, and reseed or resod (if chickens will be on that plot again within a year, I would suggest sod instead of seed, and take real good care of it and don't let the chickens in for a few months) OR just give up and mulch the whole darn thing

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[Dogfish]

Roto-till after the chickens have been moved.

 

[columbiacritter]

I dump straw and all my garden weeds in my girls run. After three years it's gone from hard pack to ultra rich pottiing soil. I dig 2 or 3 wheel barrow loads out in the fall and layer it on winter dormant beds or use it to make new beds. It is very wonderful garden soil. With 4 or 5 bales of straw over a year and all the weeds they build the run level back up real quick and the worms are HUGE!