Questions from a newbie on deep litter method

[yellowchicks]

Does anyone have any thoughts on herbicides? I bought this house a year ago and a very long stretch of the property is lawn. My eventual plan is to graze llamas on part of it, and the chickens will be fenced in with them at that point. For the rest of the cleared area, though, I want to get rid of the lawn and replace it with more shrubs, perennials, wildflowers and native broadleafs. I had a guy come from VA Tech yesterday to advise on how to do this. He said to spray once in late June with a herbicide that will kill only grass (to get the Japanese stilt grass), and then again in early Oct. with Roundup to get the fescue (though I've since been told that contrary to what he said, the Roundup will kill everything, even the native broadleafs that aren't supposed to be actively growing by then). It didn't occur to me to ask him if it was okay if the chickens (and my cats, who are constantly nibbling grass) eat stuff that's been sprayed. I've been googling and getting contradictory info, but it mostly sounds like Roundup is not a good idea. I'm not sure about the grass-only herbicide.

Herbicides (and Roundup) can stay in the soil for months, not suitable for free range chickens, they can ingest the chemicals, probably pass it through to the eggs. If you don't want that chemical in your body, don't feed it to the chickens.

To get rid of your lawn, just let the chickens loose in that area. They can scratch up and destroy the lawn in no time. I have patches of lawn that just never grow back after the girls had a field day. It may take longer, but it can be quite liberating to let them go at without worries. However, they can equally do a good job in scratching up (or eat) your new plantings.

Since we have chickens, we are a lot more conscious with the chemical usages. We opt for organic and more sustainable ways in maintain our landscaping, by mulching the grass clippings, remove the weeds by hand, and don't water our lawn (in the last 10 years), and use chicken compost as fertilizer. Interestingly, our grass has remain much greener and has less weeds than the neighbors'.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Four hens wiping out grass on any decent sized area to a point it doesn’t come back? Not going to happen where you live. In a desert maybe where you don’t get enough rain to grow much grass anyway but certainly not in Virginia. You would have to have a really high chicken density for an extended time to kill grass roots. I have an area about 35’ x 90’ in electric netting. My “standard” laying/breeding flock is one rooster and 7 or 8 hens but I seldom get down to those numbers. I raise mine for meat and often have over 40 in the flock during the peak season. Many of these are young, growing to butcher size, but once the grass gets established in the spring it stays green and growing all summer. That’s not enough chicken density to wipe out my grass. I suspect your climate is even wetter so it would take even more chickens to wipe it out.

Different people have different opinions on herbicides and some have extremely strong feelings on them. I use them but very selectively. For my grass killer I use a product with Poast as the active ingredient. It’s called something pretty clever like “Grass Killer” or something close. When used according to the label it will kill most grasses and leave broadleaf plants alone. But before you use any herbicide read the label carefully, especially the withdrawal times. The product I use lists different withdrawal times for different foods, some pretty long, but I don’t use it anywhere around foods. I just use it in iris beds, landscaping beds, places where it will not get in my food supply. Personally I would not let the chickens graze in the area it has been used for several months. Some of the withdrawal times are petty long.

Round-Up is absorbed through the leaves. If the leaves are dead and nothing alive is sticking up to be sprayed, it won’t kill it. You have to be real careful how you use it but you might be able to get away with just spraying it on the fescue when everything else is dead. To be honest, I’d be nervous using it like that but some people do.

Talk again with the guy from Va Tech. Ask him how long Round-Up stays active in the soil. Pesticides and herbicides do break down over time but for some it can be a fair amount of time. There have been a lot of scientific studies that show Round-up’s effects on stuff growing in it. He should have access to those studies. Ask him your questions and see if his answers make you feel better. The withdrawal times for Round-Up probably aren’t that long but I don’t have them off the top of my head.

Also, ask him about the chickens grazing on the area sprayed with the pure grass killer too. It would help to have a specific grass killer in mind so you can tell him the active ingredients. I’m a lot more nervous about that than I am about Round-Up. But any of this is a very personal decision. I won’t try to make yours for you.

 

[chickens in VA]

Four hens wiping out grass on any decent sized area to a point it doesn’t come back? Not going to happen where you live. In a desert maybe where you don’t get enough rain to grow much grass anyway but certainly not in Virginia. You would have to have a really high chicken density for an extended time to kill grass roots. I have an area about 35’ x 90’ in electric netting. My “standard” laying/breeding flock is one rooster and 7 or 8 hens but I seldom get down to those numbers. I raise mine for meat and often have over 40 in the flock during the peak season. Many of these are young, growing to butcher size, but once the grass gets established in the spring it stays green and growing all summer. That’s not enough chicken density to wipe out my grass. I suspect your climate is even wetter so it would take even more chickens to wipe it out.

Different people have different opinions on herbicides and some have extremely strong feelings on them. I use them but very selectively. For my grass killer I use a product with Poast as the active ingredient. It’s called something pretty clever like “Grass Killer” or something close. When used according to the label it will kill most grasses and leave broadleaf plants alone. But before you use any herbicide read the label carefully, especially the withdrawal times. The product I use lists different withdrawal times for different foods, some pretty long, but I don’t use it anywhere around foods. I just use it in iris beds, landscaping beds, places where it will not get in my food supply. Personally I would not let the chickens graze in the area it has been used for several months. Some of the withdrawal times are petty long.

Round-Up is absorbed through the leaves. If the leaves are dead and nothing alive is sticking up to be sprayed, it won’t kill it. You have to be real careful how you use it but you might be able to get away with just spraying it on the fescue when everything else is dead. To be honest, I’d be nervous using it like that but some people do.

Talk again with the guy from Va Tech. Ask him how long Round-Up stays active in the soil. Pesticides and herbicides do break down over time but for some it can be a fair amount of time. There have been a lot of scientific studies that show Round-up’s effects on stuff growing in it. He should have access to those studies. Ask him your questions and see if his answers make you feel better. The withdrawal times for Round-Up probably aren’t that long but I don’t have them off the top of my head.

Also, ask him about the chickens grazing on the area sprayed with the pure grass killer too. It would help to have a specific grass killer in mind so you can tell him the active ingredients. I’m a lot more nervous about that than I am about Round-Up. But any of this is a very personal decision. I won’t try to make yours for you.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's no way my four chickens could make a dent in all my grass! Like you said, it grows quick and fast here, and I've got a lot of it. Not to mention that in most of the garden, I will eventually want to be planting things that I DON'T want eaten, so free ranging them everywhere isn't a long term solution. I did consider a sod cutter type thing, but the terrain is pretty uneven and rocky and I don't feel capable of operating it myself. Plus I'd actually like to keep a lot of the ''weeds'', especially the pollinator friendly ones, growing amongst the grass. Part of the ultimate goal of this project is to plant more pollinator friendly stuff in place of the grass.

I've emailed our local Extension agent (not the guy who came out yesterday) to ask his views too, since he's pretty good on things like herbicide details. It's sounding, though, from what people are saying here and from much of what I've been reading online, that I'm not going to want the chickens around anything I've sprayed. I've even become concerned about my cats, who munch grass, but at least they're not incessant grazers like chickens! So the plan is to try to get their fence built asap (easier said than done, sadly, since I'm also not capable of DIY on that and it's hard to get people to do work like that round here), then put the girls in there. If I'm lucky, I can get this done before I have to spray for the first time in late June-early July....otherwise they might just have to stay in their run or in chicken playpens on the unsprayed area (which will eventually be their/the llamas') area after the fence is built.