Using Chicken Run fence as a trellis for climbing food plants?

[45lk9p459gm-w]

That's an important thought. Thank you.

I don't think there is any possibility that runoff/close proximity to the chicken poo in the compost area of the chicken run has negatively affected the bean plants. First of all, there has been no rainfall this drought year, so there would be no runoff. Secondly, there is not much chicken poo in the compost area as most of the chicken droppings appear to be at night while roosting in their coop.

When I clean out the deep litter in the coop, I place it into the chicken run but in the section farthest away from this "green zone". By the time that chicken coop deep litter gets anywhere near the last "green zone" of the chicken run, it will be about 1 year sitting outside. By then, I would think it would help the bean plants to grow better if there were any runoff. That is the same area where I shovel up the compost to sift for use in the garden. So, the compost should be ready to use anywhere at that point.

**nods**

Your run area looks to be much larger than mine and I have ten birds. I am working with a 12 x 20 foot run and it gets a lot of poop deposited during the day. This fall we will add shredded leaves to the run and leave them until the following fall when they will be moved to a compost pile to finish off during the winter months. Then it will be used for garden plots and other beds in the spring. I hope this will become a fall to fall cycle every year.

Next spring I will plant some vine crops around the run fence and see what happens.

 

[gtaus]

Your run area looks to be much larger than mine and I have ten birds. I am working with a 12 x 20 foot run and it gets a lot of poop deposited during the day.

I also have 10 chickens, but my run is now 12X36 - basically 3 sections of 12X12 so I can use bird netting over the top of the fencing. Since I converted most of my chicken run to a composting system, I really don't see much poo at all. I suppose it gets mixed in with all the other wood chips, leaves, and grass clippings as the chickens scratch around the run. Even last year, when my composting chicken run was just 12X12, any poo from the chickens disappear automagically into the compost and the run never smelled. I understand some people might not like the looks of a composting chicken run, but it sure works good for me and when I look at all that compost, I just think I'm making black gold for the garden.

FWIW, I had a few neighbors this year tell me that they really liked how I made the chicken run into a composting system. I guess they understood the pay off would be in compost for the garden.

I think the favorite time of year for my chickens in the run is late fall when I am mowing up bins full of fallen leaves and dumping them into the run. They love diving into the piles of leaves and scratching through the leaves for bugs or whatever else they find to eat. Of course, all that activity helps the leaves break down into smaller pieces and speeds up the composting process. Last fall I had about 18 inches of compost (mostly leaves) in the run and this spring it had been composted down to about 12 inches.

Fresh leaves in the chicken run look absolutely beautiful with all their colors. It really looks great. After a heavy rain, I discovered the leaves will turn black. So this year, I will be taking some pictures of the run as I dump in the fresh leaves when they still have their colors.

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

I also have 10 chickens, but my run is now 12X36 - basically 3 sections of 12X12 so I can use bird netting over the top of the fencing. Since I converted most of my chicken run to a composting system, I really don't see much poo at all. I suppose it gets mixed in with all the other wood chips, leaves, and grass clippings as the chickens scratch around the run. Even last year, when my composting chicken run was just 12X12, any poo from the chickens disappear automagically into the compost and the run never smelled. I understand some people might not like the looks of a composting chicken run, but it sure works good for me and when I look at all that compost, I just think I'm making black gold for the garden.

FWIW, I had a few neighbors this year tell me that they really liked how I made the chicken run into a composting system. I guess they understood the pay off would be in compost for the garden.

I think the favorite time of year for my chickens in the run is late fall when I am mowing up bins full of fallen leaves and dumping them into the run. They love diving into the piles of leaves and scratching through the leaves for bugs or whatever else they find to eat. Of course, all that activity helps the leaves break down into smaller pieces and speeds up the composting process. Last fall I had about 18 inches of compost (mostly leaves) in the run and this spring it had been composted down to about 12 inches.

Fresh leaves in the chicken run look absolutely beautiful with all their colors. It really looks great. After a heavy rain, I discovered the leaves will turn black. So this year, I will be taking some pictures of the run as I dump in the fresh leaves when they still have their colors.

Right now my run is just dirt. I'm encouraged by your success with the leaves. Hope mine works out as well.

 

[gtaus]

Right now my run is just dirt. I'm encouraged by your success with the leaves. Hope mine works out as well.

I know we all live in different areas and have different weather to deal with, but when my chickens ate all the grass down to the dirt in the chicken run, their poo had no place to go and it looked bad. When it rained, the dirt turned into mud. I don't like the idea of my chickens running around in poo mud. So I dumped a nice layer of wood chips in the run and then started adding all my grass clippings in the spring and summer and then in the fall I started adding fallen leaves.

You would be hard pressed to find any poo in my chicken run compost system now. The poo seems to automagically disappear into the litter and help with the composting process. My chicken run litter is about 12 inches deep at the moment, and if we had days of hard rain (we have a drought this year), I would never have to worry about mud.

Also, my chicken run compost system never smells. We have had almost no rain at all this year, so my chicken run compost is very dry. I actually put a sprinkler on the run every once in a while just to encourage the composting process. Last year we had normal rainfall and I remember how the chicken run compost would smell like a forest floor after days of rain. To me, that is a good, healthy, earthy smell that I enjoy. Of course, the water helps the composting process so I really miss natural rainfall this year.

There are a number people here on BYC forums that have converted their chicken run into composting systems. We are very happy with the process and results. But, if you don't like your setup, you can always take everything out and try something else. One of the main reasons I got chickens was to make compost for my gardens - eggs are just a bonus. So my chicken run compost setup works great for me.

 

[Idaho Chicken Bungalow]

I’m so glad you asked because I was thinking of doing the same thing.

Great question...I was going to try sunflowers. Now I think a combination of sugar snap peas (early crop) and sunflowers would be awesome.

 

[gtaus]

Got a handful of pole beans from the chicken run fence. Just enough for supper tonight for Dear Wife and myself. Have another handful of beans to pick maybe in a week. If this had been a normal growing season for us, I think I would have been picking beans by the bucket full. Unfortunately, this is the worst drought year I have seen here in over 33+ years living here.

Like I said, I think maybe I am getting about 10% growth out of what I planted. I am using the sprinkler to water the plants, but even so, it's been a really tough year for gardening here.

I will try the pole beans on the chicken run fence again next year, but getting the beans planted into the ground early so maybe they get off to a better start. Would also like to try some sugar snap peas on that fencing.

 

[Sally PB]

automagically

What a great word!

 

[McChooky]

I just added 26 feet of 6 foot tall 2X4 welded wire fencing to the length to my chicken run. I am wondering if anyone uses their chicken run fence as a trellis for climbing food plants such as beans, cucumbers, squash, etc...? It seems a shame to leave all that great fencing bare when it could possibly be put to use a trellis.

I am thinking that if I added some 24 inch high chicken wire to the bottom of the fence, then the chickens would not poke their heads through the wire and bite off the growing vine(s) on the outside of the fence.

If anyone has tried growing climbing food plants on their chicken run fence, I would like to hear your story and lessons learned. I am thinking my back wall of the chicken run fence filled with climbing beans would look awesome and provide lots of food for the table. Thanks for any suggestions.

I'd added raised beds around my runs and coop .One is for my cuttings but the rest are filled with shrubs, flowers and raspberries . I'm also adding a grape vine on one end and tomatoes on the other. I also save all their old bedding to make compost.

 

[gtaus]

I'd added raised beds around my runs and coop .One is for my cuttings but the rest are filled with shrubs, flowers and raspberries . I'm also adding a grape vine on one end and tomatoes on the other. I also save all their old bedding to make compost.

Sounds like a good plan. I built my new raised beds and put them out by the chicken coop and run. Not right up to the fence, but within distance to easily weed the beds and toss the weeds to the chickens in the run. I turned my chicken run into a composting system, so it will be easy to harvest the compost from the chicken run and add it to the raised beds. I use wood chips deep litter in the coop and, like you, all that gets composted (out in the run) when I put in fresh litter for the coop.

It sounds like you have a greater variety of plants around the chickens than I do, but I am adding more beds as I go along and I hope to start growing more types of food plants. I already have a strawberry bed, but would like to plant tomatoes in the new beds next year. This year I had beans, peppers, swiss chard, kohlrabi, and onions planted out by the chickens. Next year I hope to have twice as many raised beds and plant more types of food.

Next spring I think I'll plant beans and peas along the chicken run fence early so maybe they will get off to a better start. Dear Wife has lots of flower beds, so I don't do anything with flowers. We have enough flowers to keep the bees and hummingbirds happy. I could not find any grape vines for planting around here this year, but might look again next year.

 

[45lk9p459gm-w]

Change of plans ….. Growing beans on my run fence was really a great idea until I remembered the electric wires that run around the bottom of the fence. Duh … I’m still going to compost shredded leaves in the run though but plant the beans elsewhere.