What else can i put in my run....

[leenie]

I picked up s wire drawer stand off the side of the road one day and used the drawers this way. I move the drawers around every couple of months and add new sprouting seeds. Wheat grows through the top andf the girls spend happy time mowing the tops as needed.

 

[Carpe DiHen]

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That is very cool,

I'm gonna try that, thanks for the idea and pictures!

 

[chicknerd]

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We also built some things for them to fly up to and roost on. They love them.

 

[Nava]

I use a string to hang a screwdriver at the bottom of the string right avobe the chickens head, then I attach a head of cabbage to the screwdriver and they eat and peck at it until is all gone, the funny part is whan it gets to high and they have to jump for it.
( if they are not use to it, hang it lower until they know what it is and acquire a taste for it, then you can raise it )
chickens wont get bored all day.

 

[kano]

I have cage birds, so all de seeds that I sweep out the floor I give to the hens. They can spend hours scratching and picking at the soil.

 

[scooter147]

I throw about a third of straw in the run about once a month. Then in the morning I throw a few handfuls of scratch all around. They will spend a good part of their day looking for the pieces of grain amongst the straw.
I have also (like the one post mentioned) run the till through the run every once in a while, THEY REALLY LIKE THAT.

 

[joebryant]

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What a great idea, wheat grass. I'll do something like that using 1" opening plastic wire and/or chicken wire set over a long row of movable four-inches-high blocks. THANKS!
ETA Might even throw in some collard and mustard seeds too.

 

[MrChicken207]

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Of course, with all of the worms and beetls that get dug up by that tiller, they'll get stuffed with protein for a day or two.

 

[scooter147]

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Of course, with all of the worms and beetls that get dug up by that tiller, they'll get stuffed with protein for a day or two.

Yep and some of those worms in the run are as big as small snakes. Speaking of bugs has anyone gone had chickens when the 17 year locusts show up? WOW, the only time I've seen chickens turn their noses up at bugs because if they ate another one they just might explode. As a matter of fact what I remember seeing them do was catch them "twist the head off" and just eat that and run down the next one.

 

[MrChicken207]

What I saw in a book once was that one old farmers in the midwest devised a harvesting machine of some sort that whould be pulled through the tall grass and it would collect the grasshoppers and it would be saved for winter feed for the birds. looked like he used 1/4 inch hardware cloth to build it. I've always thought that that was cool. after a couple of years it would pay for itself in the amount of protein that it gathered.