Single hen

[Snoxy]

Hi Everyone!

 

Apologies if this subject has been covered over and over again but I did a search honestly!

 

Our 3 girls have eaten virtually all our grass over the winter...can anyone tell me if it will grow back once the growing season really kicks in or will we have to re-turf? I'm now thinking that maybe I should have fenced off part of the garden during the winter months but I so love our girls to freerange as much as poss. You can tell I'm a novice chicken keeper, eh!?

 

Thank you in advance.

 

 

Lou X

[jess]

Yes definitely, mine always did it will justlook ugly for a while.

[Yolky]

I would try giving the girls a specific area and seeding the rest.

[Snoxy]

Thank you...don't mind ugly...and will seed if doesn't recover well! Guess it good idea to give girls fenced off area now to give it best chance!?

 

Do you know where I can find pics of fenced off areas on the forum please?

 

Lou X

[Yolky]

Have you seen the Omlet fencing? It is good and you can move it round as and when needed.

[Snoxy]

Thank you I will take a look now

[chelsea]

ours never recovers (we dont restrict our chickens though as its cheaper to returf our postage stamp than to buy fencing!).

 

You are right though that if you want to protect your grass it needs fencing off as during the winter it doesnt cope with the battering from the chooks.

[Hen Watch]

Hi Snoxy,

I've got Omlet netting and my lot live behind the netting in their own area thus limiting the damage. And I move them round the garden 3 times a year (forget crop rotation, this is chicken rotation ). I guess a lots depends too on the size of area they have as to how much grass they will eat.

 

Last Winter this was their home on the left of the garden.

 

They ate all the grass and it turned into this (same area different camera angle)

 

We reseeded the area, it regrew whilst they were living on the other side of the garden in their Spring/Summer location.

 

In Summer my grass is fine and the only damage is the area the eglu lives on. You could rotate it every few days which is what I used to do, but now I'm lazy and I just put up with a bald "landing strip" of grass which gets reseeded in Sept when the girls move to the middle of the garden in their Autumn location. This is the landing strip but you can see the rest of the grass in their enclosure last summer is ok.

[Snoxy]

Thank you so much for the pics Katy...your set-up seems FAB!

 

Wow your daughter is on the tele...I will defo watch Our daughter featured on the front page of our local Newspaper recently...but dont think she will be on the tele anytime soon...you must feel incredibly proud of your daughter

 

Best wishes...

 

Lou X

[Hen Watch]

Our daughter featured on the front page of our local Newspaper recently...but dont think she will be on the tele anytime soon...you must feel incredibly proud of your daughter

 

You never know Lou ...... Holly just sent off an application form when she saw on TV that they needed people for a new series. She's just a normal school girl, doesn't do any stage school or acting or stuff like that and after quite a few auditions she got through. We are very proud of her.... and I've turned into a shameless parent pluggin the children's TV show on the forum ......

 

I forgot to mention something about grass. I've just posted in Poppy's question just now. I should have said those pics above were Winter '07 which got reseeded and it regrew. Funnily enough the girls are now back on the same patch right now (for Winter'08/New Year '09) and they've not made anywhere near as much destruction. Not sure why. Maybe less rain this year? Or perhaps I just got wise this year and shut them away on heavy rainfall days so they didn't go digging for worms? Not sure, but even though the area is more scratched over and thin I don't think I will need to reseed this year at all. But I think with chickens I still learn all the time and it is still trial and error to get things right, even after having had them for 2 years I still find out new stuff on this forum.

[Ain't Nobody Here]

I've just created an area for my girls behind some Omlet netting. I have a brand new turf lawn and they're not getting on that . I can already see the difference on the bits they can reach through the netting .

 

[Snoxy]

Shameless parent...neva...just a very PROUD one Well done to your daughter

 

Think our dear little Ellin has had her 15 mins of fame she was on the front page of the local paper because she was born @ 26 weeks 1 day gestation...and the Tommys charity asked us if we would do a feature to promote their charity...how could we say no when our little girl survived against the odds! Even if it helped just one family who have a premature baby the terrible foto of me will all have been worth it She is truly our dear little miracle...having been born with meningitis weighing just 1lb 14.5oz We were told by the reporter that our feature would be buried somewhere in the newspaper so you can imagine our shock when we were on the front page We were also in another local paper a few weeks later even though I was only asked to answer a couple of questions

 

 

Thank you for the additional info...very much appreciated

 

Lou X

[Snoxy]

Ain't "Ooops, word censored!"ody Here...Did you have your lawn re-turfed because your girls wrecked it?

 

Lou X

[Ain't Nobody Here]

Partly, but to be fair, our lawn was pretty bad before the girls arrived. It had big grass-less patches and loads of daisies, dandelions and moss (we never bothered looking after it ).

 

I don't really want my girls on the new lawn because although eating the grass won't kill it, the scratching and digging won't do it any good .

[Old Speckled Hen]

Thank you...don't mind ugly...and will seed if doesn't recover well! Guess it good idea to give girls fenced off area now to give it best chance!?

 

Do you know where I can find pics of fenced off areas on the forum please?

 

Lou X

 

Hi Snoxy

Here's mine

 

 

I have used omlet netting (which you can see in the background) to restrict the hens to the borders while the "lawn" is reseeded with "Chicken Grass"

This part of my garden is shaded and mossy so I have double trouble re the grass.

[Snoxy]

Thank you for posting your pic All Knowing SuperChicken...much appreciated.

 

Lou x