Toots Posted April 22, 2010 Share Posted April 22, 2010 I keep my bee hive on a farm shops farm, and the owner keeps chooks... lots of bantams He has had an ingenious idea i am going to copy. He has a long plastic window box (about £3 from a garden center) in the chicken run. He has filled it with soil and sown grass seed into it and covered it with chicken wire. This allows the grass to grow not get scratched up and the girls can peck at it when theysee its long enough to reach! because mine dont free range while i am at work i thought a few of these in the WIR would give them something new. I may also sow cut and come again salads for them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gelbel Posted April 22, 2010 Share Posted April 22, 2010 Ooohhhh - what a good idea. I feel some WIR window boxes coming on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Falkor Posted April 22, 2010 Share Posted April 22, 2010 arrrrh the mesh over the to[ is a very good idea. I gave my lot a roll of left over turf in their run last year - they thought all their christmas' had come at once Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gelbel Posted April 22, 2010 Share Posted April 22, 2010 Dumb question and a bit off topic but what exactly do chooks do to grass and how quickly? I've seen all your pictures of bare grass - do they just dig at it like mine do with my borders? Both my previous girls and these new ones only act like sheep and nibble at my grass and try to fertilise it. So much so the DH only needs to strim the borders out the back. I so want to let them out on the front grass one Sunday as they make a better job of it than the DH and his mower. The only damage to my lawn is a patch that I created in all the awful wet weather we had in the winter from where I was standing to open and close the run. If I can be bothered to put some grass seed down (I'll do it on a Sunday night when the girls are locked away for the week so it gets a chance to establish) I would have better grass than BC (before chooks). Have I just been very, very lucky or do I have dumb girls? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WitchHazel Posted April 22, 2010 Share Posted April 22, 2010 This sounds like a really interesting idea, I think we might have a go at that. We've put troughs of SPinach in before, which they love, but hadn't thought about covering them over. Thanks for sharing Dumb question and a bit off topic but what exactly do chooks do to grass and how quickly? I've seen all your pictures of bare grass - do they just dig at it like mine do with my borders?? In my experience, the chickens don't damage the grass per se, but if there is a weakness in the grass then the girls will work it and make it worse. So, if you have a small bare patch, or a weak patch, the girls wil find it, their chickeny feet wil get to work and it will gradually get bigger. It's more noticeable the smaller the area the Girls have to roam in. When mine have a lot of the garden, they don't tend to stay in one place too long; however, if they are confined to a smaller area (eg if we have chicks out on another area) then they do tend to work the ground a bit more. Hope that helps? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gelbel Posted April 22, 2010 Share Posted April 22, 2010 Thanks WitchHazel. I've got, what I suppose is, a normal size suburban back garden with biggish borders on three sides that the grils FR in at the weekends. The girls live in an area off of the end of the garden behind the garage. I suppose they must be happy with the borders they can dig in to leave the one (man made) hole in the grass alone. I did have to fence off one border last weekend as they badly damaged some newly established shrubs (even thought they were wired off and pegged down ) - but they did not seem to mind. Well, I think I will knock off for the day so let's go and see what mayhem they can cause now as I go to put the kettle on - I always pop to see them while it's boiling. I can give them a little treat of last night's left over peas and sweetcorn. Little madams have been a bit frisky this week - Madge is coming into lay and she is getting more assertive with Ada and Cissie which is causing them to show off as soon as they hear me. All three have been ganging up and rushing me in a bid to get out when I open the WIR. So far this week they have managed to make me spill most of the CAV water from a newly filled Glug all over myself and a top up of the oyster grit went pretty much the same way. But it was the well aimed 'greens treat' poo on my flip-flopped foot that made them blush at the language. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
