Topic of the Week - Chickens and Fall Leaves

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

Interesting to me that so many of you have to do this since I usually don’t. Living in AZ, not everything dies here, and there’s enough to keep my flock happy throughout winter naturally.

your lucky not to have Super cold winters! Its a beast all in its own. Here in CT, Enrichment and nutrition plus housing all get major considerations in the winter months.

 

[My Very First 6 Chickens]

I use dry leaves in my run year round! They make an excellent (and free) run bedding material. I collect and bag them in the fall after they've dried fully, store them in a protected area and use them throughout the year. My chickens LOVE "dump day" when I dump a bag or two in their run! They spend hours scratching around spreading the leaves, looking for hidden treasures. They shred them completely in a couple of weeks, and mix them around with the poop and other run substrate. The carbon from the leaves combines with the nitrogen from the poop, and water from rain/snow, to form a nice compost that doesn't smell or look poopy. I have wood chips in the run as well, and add all the cut grass in the summer, and together this all makes for a great active compost in the run that looks and smells nice, and is enriching for the chickens who love scratching through it. So I actually don't clean the run - I don't have to. Bonus: this kind of run substrate doesn't get muddy, or freeze solid in the winter. When it snows, I shovel what I can and cover the rest with dry leaves, and the chickens are happy and spend all day outside even in the winter (they hate stepping on snow or ice). Everybody wins!

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awww <3 Look at all those beautiful girls! <3

 

[someonewholovesgeese]

just

I gather fall leaves for use in my deep litter in the run year round, as as compost for the garden. I save paper feed bags use them to store bags of loosely packed, dried leaves in an unused greenhouse.

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(not many bags left when fall rolls back around)

My birds love piles of dried leaves, and I dump a bag or two when there's not much else for them to mess with (i.e. in summer they tend to get grass clippings instead of leaves) and let them flatten the piles and distribute the leaves around, until they break down over the course of weeks.

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(couldn't find any good pics with fresh piles, but obviously these were recently added - chicks and adults approve!)

As I have a willow tree overhanging my run I do get a lot of branches and leaves dropping around it. I leaf blower the leaves into the run itself, and smaller branches can go in as well.

a question, will chickens or geese eat the leaves? and are oak leaves safe to use?

 

[Mother of Chaos]

My girls love chopped-up leaves (chopped by the lawn mower) in their run for days when it's too rainy to get out in the yard.

One thought: don't use leaves that have been raked up from the street gutters along your road! They are generally contaminated with petrochemicals from vehicle traffic, and they really shouldn't be added to either your chicken runs or your compost heap. Instead, use leaves raked from yards that haven't been exposed to herbicides and other pesticides.

I often mooch them from my neighbors, who have bagged them up and put them by the curb for city pickup. I can return their leaf bags in five minutes, which seems to make them absurdly pleased!

 

[hammyanne]

I rake leaves into the run, and I’ve noticed that my girls have been more adventurous with their free-ranging/widening their radius. They love digging around in the leaves!

 

[rosemarythyme]

just

a question, will chickens or geese eat the leaves? and are oak leaves safe to use?

I don't have geese so can't answer on geese, but in general chickens won't eat tree leaves (I say in general because mine do eat tender young willow leaves, and there's a willow tree over their run).

Dried oak leaves should be safe for chickens, I know they're poisonous if consumed but again the chickens shouldn't want to eat them.

 

[someonewholovesgeese]

I don't have geese so can't answer on geese, but in general chickens won't eat tree leaves (I say in general because mine do eat tender young willow leaves, and there's a willow tree over their run).

Dried oak leaves should be safe for chickens, I know they're poisonous if consumed but again the chickens shouldn't want to eat them.

ok thanks

 

[someonewholovesgeese]

g

I don't have geese so can't answer on geese, but in general chickens won't eat tree leaves (I say in general because mine do eat tender young willow leaves, and there's a willow tree over their run).

Dried oak leaves should be safe for chickens, I know they're poisonous if consumed but again the chickens shouldn't want to eat the

i dont think geese will eat brown leaves so it should be fine (so long as they have enough good greens)

 

[PopoMyers]

I wish our leaves here would get brown and dry like many of you lucky peeps do. Made the mistake once, of dumping wet leaves in the run. They did get spread around, but also packed down, along with poo, so the run became quite stinky after awhile, like stagnant water. When the weather warmed and cleared by the next May, I took my pick and tiller through it so it could dry out.
Last year, we dumped piles if leaves on the bare dirt. No evidence left behind. The chooks do a great job as tiller tractors.
Raking leaves into piles and not removing them immediately away from chickens makes a great daily upper body workout.

Fall 2024, our fruit trees are in the fenced chicken yard. Lo and behold, we did not even rake last year, and all the leaves were nicely shredded and tilled by the chickens. Less work for us, more fun for them. Win win!