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| I am new to growing my own veggies, composting and seed starting.....I have a question for you about your compost piles:
1. After you clean your run and/or coop, and you put the poo + shavings in your composter, do you need to add other organic material? We have very few trees (so no leaves) to add to the composter for the dry ingredients, but I was hoping that the pine shavings would be enough. 2. How have you kept your chickens away from your veggie gardens? Are there any veggie plants that they won't eat? So far my 6 hens have not destroyed my lawn or my plants, which some people say is a miracle. But they have a designated "dig area" that they always seem to be scratching around, so I guess my lawn isn't interesting. I will be planting a veggie garden for the first time in raised beds and am hoping to make removeable "screens" to cover the seedlings until they are bigger. Do your chickens devastate your gardens? 3. Any suggestions for compatibly living with chickens and a veggie garden? The configuration of our yard will make it hard to fence in the areas..... |
Follow-Up Postings:
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- Posted by rosiew 7 GA (rosemarywalsh@bellsouth.net) on Thu, Dec 30, 10 at 11:28
| My daughter's wonderful chickens would eat the entire veggie garden if they could get to it. They surrounded it with 'chicken wire' which is barely noticeable visually. Looking forward to what others offer as advice. |
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- Posted by shermthewerm (My Page) on Thu, Dec 30, 10 at 12:07
| The only way for compatibly living with chickens is to not allow them in any area you don't want scratched up (fences/chicken wire). Even if the chickens don't like to eat a certain plant, they will always love to scratch around the roots, or entire seedlings, looking for tasty bugs. As far as composting chicken manure, the shavings should be enough. You'd know soon enough by the smell if it wasn't. I add everything to my compost pile: chicken manure & shavings, veggie scraps, grass clippings, weeds, shredded paper. I try to keep the pile hot (for safety in composting manure) by adding UCG whenever the pile starts to cool. I try to keep it at or above 130 degrees--I'm sure someone will correct me if this isn't the temperature recommmended. Anyway, give it a try. If there aren't enough browns with the shavings, you could always add shredded cardboard, paper, toilet paper rolls, etc. |
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| I fenced my chickens into the garden last fall after most of my stuff was out and will be doing it again they didn't seem interested in tomatoes at all just sitting on top of the cages. Celery and peppers,sweet and hot they didn't bother cukes had to be cut open before they would eat them lots and lots of bugs died though and a few mice also I have about 4-6 inches of hay mulch in my garden they enjoyed scratching in and threw in some bigger wads with corn mixed in that they spread all out for me And they love fresh grass shoots a little rye sprinkled in the corner made them happy I would say try a little and see how your chickens react I am excited to get mine in there next year they are going to be in the potato patch picking those darn beetles hopefully |
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- Posted by nancyjane_gardener USDA 8ish No C (My Page) on Thu, Dec 30, 10 at 21:14
| My stupid chickens all started eating their own eggs and had to go! Too expensive to feed them when they don't produce! When I had them, I would clean out the coop about once a month and spread out the manure/straw mixture and dump into the compost. I usually stopped and started a new pile around Jan/Feb, so the poop wouldn't get too hot. That way, the old can finish and the new can get started! |
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| firsthouse mp, do a search on chicken tractors. nanceyjane, my mother cooked fresh bread every mourning & put fresh egg shells in the hot oven when she took the bread out. To dry the shells before crushing them to mix with the hen feed. So the hens would not eat the eggs. Do not know if it worked, but the penned hen did not eat eggs. We had free(WILD)range chickens too. God only knows what they did. |
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| If you plant something out in the yard, put 3 bricks aroung the stem until rooted. A full-sized chicken can dig up a newly planted (10" pot) tree. We put wire around our raised garden beds, and are gradually making "gates" out of wire with 1x2" lumber. Lengths of coat hanger wire make hinges and latches. They have a goal: no bugs/worms will live! My back yard, which is shady and wormy, looks like the aftermath of the Battle of the Bulge. We have to take a flashlight and step carefully when we go out to close the coop. I wouldn't trade my chickens for all the tea in China, or some other magnificent gift. They are a constant entertainment. We are in Florida under oak trees. Have never sprayed poison, and do not have roaches. If you live in Florida, you know that is a miracle. Some new neighbors moved in and piled all their belongings in their carport while unloading. Soon we had small german roaches crawling in that side of the yard. Soon they were all gone. The girls are better than Raid. |
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| kumquat1, thanks for the Raid story. My father keep some bird dog puppies in a chicken coop for a friend. He finally came & got them. We stayed in shorts & bare foot in the summer. The coop was full of fleas, until father put some 6 week old chicks in the pen. No more fleas. |
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