1stop Organic Gardening

I’ve alway thought that having chickens is a great advantage to any organic gardening /permaculture system. I mean they provide you with eggs, meat (if you’re that way inclined), chicks if you have a rooster, fertilizer – and they eat bugs and weeds if you’ve got somewhere for them to forage.

Trouble is, they can eat things you don’t want them to, unless you protect it well. Below is a photo of one of our raspberry plants, with our rooster eyeing it off. You can’t tell in the photo, but the fruits are starting to form now and I don’t want to share any of the plant with the chooks.

You see, I grew this plant from a couple of sticks….  oh, all right, several divisions that I took from my husband’s grandparents home.

I clip the right hand wing of all of my chickens. This stops them from flying over the fence, but they can jump / fly enough to make it to their perch each night.

We have also run some budgie wire along the length of the fence. It’s only about 45cm (20inches) tall, but it’s enough to stop the chooks from sticking their heads through or under the fence and eating whatever they think looks good at the time.

Now we can plant all the way along the fence line, without having to worry about the chooks decimating our hard work – CAUSE THEY WILL!!! (if they can)

Again, if you’ve got the space to include chickens in your organic gardening system, then I highly recommend you get some. They’re truly wonderful!

Happy Organic Gardening, Healthy Living…

Filed under: Uncategorized, chickens on September 28th, 2008