Shadrach's Ex Battery and Rescued chickens thread.

[BlindLemonChicken]

It’s pretty sobering how quickly 3 pullets can clean out a patch, and now we have 5!

It’s also sobering when you have 26 on less than an acre and they choose the garden over the weeds lol.

 

[Shadrach]

how do you know when they’ve pretty much cleaned out a patch?

It's a really difficult thing to guesstimate.
Unconfined, they tend not to strip an area, but move on to the next.
Then there's the problem of stripped for what, anything edible, high preference foods, seasonal gluts?
I know I keep writing this and people still note exceptions. There are always exceptional conditions. However, it's pretty well established from the observation of various types of jungle fowl to feral domestic chickens that an acre to an acre and a half of varied vegetation etc etc. is what a family sized group will traverse in search of food and survive on only the food they forage.

Once you feed the chickens then they tend to search for preference foods and they'll leave foods that are perfectly edible but not a s nice as something else a few metres away. The field chickens do this a lot. A couple of months ago they wouldn't have touched the stuff they eat now. Currently it's a bit of most anything that looks fresh and green. The seeding grasses they were fond of done, even the short grass is mostly stubble at best, althought I do keep a few patches watered which they nibble on.
I have mentioned in the thread that I make mini compost heaps around the extended run. Sylph and Mow have lost interest in doing any serious foraging in the extended run. To all intents and purposed the extended run is stripped of interesting/easy foraging opportunities. I broke open one of the compost heaps and it was alive with bug which kept Sylph and Move entertained and feeding for three hours. I'll try and split these heaps into portions from now on.

 

[Mother of Chaos]

… A couple of months ago they wouldn't have touched the stuff they eat now. Currently it's a bit of most anything that looks fresh and green. The seeding grasses they were fond of done, even the short grass is mostly stubble at best, althought I do keep a few patches watered which they nibble on…

This is what I’m seeing. I was curious whether it was simply just the time to eat this other stuff, or if they were desperate.

They like to act desperate, but I’m unconvinced. Thanks!

 

[Mother of Chaos]

It’s also sobering when you have 26 on less than an acre and they choose the garden over the weeds lol.

That’s what you get for planting stuff with eye appeal!

 

[Shadrach]

Is that a doody on Mow's booty?

We've had some blueberry feedback. I spent an hour yesterday cleaning Sylph's arse. It was a really disgusting mess. It's still not clean but I'm hoping I've cleaned enough for the congealed mucky wet stuff for the rest to dry off and then it will crumble off when rolled between the thumb and forefinger.
No more blueberries for a while.
Sylph's digestion does not deal with fruit well but she loves blueberries.
Mow is clean where it matters I'm pleased to write. She seems to have a high pressure vent.

 

[kattabelly]

Thanks! I’m figuring that green manure = cover crop. (I see both terms in US publications.)

Basically but green manure I'd say is generally more specifically planted as a soil fertility thing - often it'll be a nitrogen fixer, or a mix including at least one N fixer. Before it flowers and sets seed it'll usually be either chop & dropped, turned or ploughed in to the soil, or cut down by frost and left to break down on the soil after that.

Not sure how long ago the bed that's flowering now was sown but I'd guess quite recently. Everything's been shooting up really quickly the last couple of months as we've had a good amount of both sun and rain.

 

[rural mouse]

A question for those who let their chickens forage but don’t have THAT much space (maybe @Shadrach, but the constraints there are more temporal): how do you know when they’ve pretty much cleaned out a patch? Bare soil, apparently not many invertebrates or seeds turning up when they scratch.

I’m planting cover crops to turn over for foraging, but it will be a good six weeks before they’re ready to be grazed.

Greater plant variety within the same space. They'll forage on something now, and circle back to something else later due to it growing differently. Mine like grass stems when they're young and fresh. If I can let the grass grow, then when it reaches @6 inches or so, they stop trying to crop it. Once it sets seeds, they come back to the grass for the seeds. Meanwhile they're in another area eating something else like the Nanking cherries or the currants..or coming back through for the grasshoppers and the flying ants. When the pea tree hedge starts popping pods, you would think they would be in that immediately, but no. They wait on that until they're moulting. I can tell which are starting to moult by which are browsing there....except when they go through for the dryer areas to get the grasshoppers. Different grasses will develop slightly offset from each other. Adding in shrubs and trees that fruit small things (chokecherries, chokeberry, currants, grapes, blueberries, crabapples etc) make for mixed ripening times, variety to forage upon, shelter from assorted predators (never Fort Knox, but it helps) and utilizes spaces so they keep shifting about.

 

[kattabelly]

Had some alarming droppings on the ground here last week until I remembered they'd been having a go at the blackcurrants! Grasses are still setting seed and in a few spots still flowering here and those are all popular, along with the green grass itself. They still love the really long, coarse cocksfoot grass. They're eating a lot of docken and raspberry leaves too and some semi-ripe docken seeds, plus smaller amounts of thistles, and common hogweed leaves now that's set seed and started putting out new growth again. One of the neighbouring plots has a seemingly infinite supply of chickweed, so that gets pulled up and chucked in for them to pick through - same as the red and white clovers which they've mostly eaten inside the chicken plot but are plentiful elsewhere. One of my gardening jobs elsewhere is yielding a big feed bag's worth of dandelions and the odd brassica volunteer at least once a week which also gets chucked down for them to pick through.

 

[Shadrach]

Three hours today. Dry and sunny. 26C.
A cooling down dust bath site.

One of the unruly compost heaps I hack into for them.

Clearing a patch of the plot on the other side of the fruit bushes.

I'm expected to have water, food and the coop inspected before they go to roost.

 

[Molpet]

We've had some blueberry feedback. I spent an hour yesterday cleaning Sylph's arse. It was a really disgusting mess. It's still not clean but I'm hoping I've cleaned enough for the congealed mucky wet stuff for the rest to dry off and then it will crumble off when rolled between the thumb and forefinger.
No more blueberries for a while.
Sylph's digestion does not deal with fruit well but she loves blueberries.
Mow is clean where it matters I'm pleased to write. She seems to have a high pressure vent.

A sanitary trim of feathers needed?