Chickens in the Garden
by Mike
Chickens are great! They are surprisingly fun and are quite easy to keep. In fact, they are less trouble than a dog.
The key to using chickens or any other animal or plant in the garden is to first understand what they do naturally and then see how those natural traits can be put to use or integrated into our gardens so we get maximum functions out of everything in the garden. In permaculture this is called stacking functions. The idea is that everything should have more than one purpose and that these purposes should work together so that the sum is greater than the parts.
So, what do chickens do naturally? They eat, scratch at the dirt, poop and lay eggs.
What do they eat? Chickens are omnivorous. They eat insects, grubs, worms, larva, seeds and, perhaps surprisingly, many tender green shoots and leaves. In the process of searching for food, they naturally scratch at the dirt with their claws. And, of course, they are prodigious poopers.
Now, under some conditions nearly all of these characteristics can be a liability. If left to themselves, they can be very destructive in the garden. They will eat tender shoots and even some root crops (they love lettuce, cabbage, carrots, beets, peas, and ripe tomatoes) and their constant digging and scratching will destroy a seedbed in short order. And if a fairly large number of chickens are confined to a relatively small area, their droppings can create a toxic wasteland. On the other hand, when properly managed, every one of the characteristics of chickens can be an asset in the garden.
Of course, egg laying is a good thing from our perspective. All female chickens (hens) lay eggs. A rooster is not needed. (Without a rooster the eggs will not, of course, be fertile. But they will be perfectly edible.) Our four Buff Orpington hens collectively lay on average about 3 eggs a day. With no fuss or bother and only some inexpensive feed, water, and the simplest of shelter, they naturally and quite happily lay eggs day in and day out except for a period in the winter from about mid-November to the beginning of February.
Chickens can be used to control unwanted insects, grubs, slugs, and weed seeds from the garden. If your garden is fenced in, it is a simple matter to put the chickens in the garden to clean up any insect or slug problem. They will eat tender shoots so it is necessary to only use chickens in the garden when tender plants are not present or are protected by fencing or netting. In our fenced vegetable garden, we put the chickens in for several weeks in the fall after nearly everything has be harvested and again in the early spring before anything is planted to eat any slugs or grubs that are about. Hopefully, they are also eating stray weed seeds.
We are in the process of fencing in our orchard with the dual purpose of keeping deer out and providing a safe place for the chickens. Once the fence is completed, we’ll let the chickens run in the orchard where they will hopefully control at least some, if not most, of the insects that plague fruit trees. And, of course, while on insect patrol their manure droppings are fertilizing the garden and orchard.
Chickens can also be used to create a new garden from sod. If confined in a relatively small area, the natural scratching of the ground by the chickens as they search for food will turn grass into bare earth in a few weeks. We recently expanded the garden in our front yard using this method. We used light weight plastic fencing to temporarily close off the area we wanted to turn into a garden. Our four chickens were confined to a roughly circular space about 15 feet in diameter. In a month or so they had turned the sod into a loose friable seedbed. And, of course, their droppings were turned into the soil in the process adding fertility.
An interesting and fun way to use chickens to create a garden is the “Chicken Tractor”. A chicken tractor is basically a mobile floorless chicken pen. The portable pen protects the chickens from the weather and predators while confining them to the area of the garden that you want to improve while keeping them out of places where they might do damage. If sized to the width of your garden beds, the chicken tractor can be moved from section to section of an existing garden and the chickens will weed, control insects, till, and fertilize your garden for you. Or the chicken tractor can be used to create a new garden bed by leaving the chickens in the same spot until they destroy the sod and in the process till and fertilize the soil.
A chicken tractor can also be used to keep chickens in a yard that you want to remain in grass. Just move the chickens to a new spot every day before they have a chance to harm the grass. This provides the chickens with the advantages of being “free range” – fresh grass, fresh air, and bugs – while protecting them from predators.
Finally, chickens can be used in a greenhouse. A section of the greenhouse is screened off for the chickens so they can’t get at the plants the gardener is trying to grow. The body heat given off by the chickens will help to heat the greenhouse in the winter and the extra CO2 they put into the air will stimulate plant growth.