WIP My take on Fowl plus Garden

[CrealCritter]

I have seen something similar but always wondered if the chicken poop would still be too "hot" in the next season to garden in. I will be following your journey and am excited to hear what you learn.

I've not had a problem with Chicken poop being hot.. I've always mixed it in with Barn Lime using the deep beding method. I'll continue to do the same with this chicken garden, before I till it under. We currently only 15 .50 cent chickens on a 1/8 acre. They haven't even ventured to the back yet. I'll be very surprised if eat all the grass before spring.

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[The Porch]

Several years ago I seen this photo on the internet somewhere. There was an article that went with the picture but I can't find it now. Basically it's a chicken garden. Chickens on the right side for one year,, garden on the left. Then the following year chickens on the left and garden on the right. Continue rotate every year. I see a lot of advantages to such a setup.

View attachment 16740

So I set out to use the rotation scheme but changed it up a little. A few weeks ago my neighbor and I built woven wire fence the area is 112' x 106' with a pull of fence down the middle. This way we can have our 50' x 100' garden every year with 3' at the end of each of the rows to turn the tiller around in.

Now I'm going to build a 8' x 16' coop and place it outside of the chicken garden. With two coop doors for chickens to access each of the 56' by 106'. I also added a 12' gate for each 56' by 106'.

Here a picture of what I got done so far. Sorry had to snap this picture in landscape to capture it all.
View attachment 16741

Here's the chickens and temporary 4' x 8' coop on the west side 56' x 106'. The chickens have a lot of room to roam about an 1/8 of an acre.
View attachment 16742

The coop was supposed to be a duck house but my wife could never get the ducks to take to it. So I just added 4 perchs and the chickens like it, plus I can move it around easy with the bobcat. We put them in there yesterday evening and opened the door this morning. Chickens seem happy happy happy and there's a lot of grass for the to eat and scratch through and poop on 👍

The whole set up It's still a WIP (work in progress) but I planted the garden on the east side this spring, got the railroad ties cemented in, t-posts set on 8' centers, fence built, gates hung and finally got chickens on the westside, so it's somewhat functional now.

My neighbor said why not put a couple of hogs or goats or lambs in with the chickens and build a movable shelter for them, you got two nice little pens here now. I said we'll see what happens over time... I just really build it for fowl (chickens and turkeys) and a garden. I'm pretty happy with the way it's turning out so far.

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

SHUT!UP! no way hahahahaha
I was just looking at a pic of this , it is from Backwoods Home

https://www.backwoodshome.com/save-time-and-energy-with-the-fenced-chicken-coopgarden/

 

[CrealCritter]

I have 1/4 inch hardware cloth all around the sides and back of the silkie pens.

I put down a deep layer of wood pellet when I first started the large fowl coop. I've only had to put lime down 3 times in 8 years. All of those were in the first year. Once it was well established, it stayed about perfect with me just adding wood shavings once or twice a year. The worms are very active in there. No smell and the top stays dry even with our rain.

SNAKES is more of my consern, we got lots of them, all different kinds to. That's why I thought I might do rat wire on the floor also. Plus leave a old 16ga shotgun out there in the coop, for my wife. Who knows... After I get it built on RR tie foundation. I might need a workout. Lifting, mixing and pouring 60lbs bag of cement for fun... stranger things have happened.

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[Hinotori]

Dirt is good for deep litter. Bad for keeping rodents out. They try and shelter in my large fowl coop even though there is no food to get.

 

[The Porch]

For the coop, I was thinking on doing a 8x16 floating cement pad for the floor. But now I think I'll just lay down some RR ties for the sill and a dirt floor instead.

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

Yes, I love having the dirt floor and I add all purpose sand, it is so easy to keep clean.

 

[The Porch]

I have a thread on how we built our coop back in 2014,
https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/building-our-new-coop.861352/