We've extended the chicken run numerous times as I've added more chickens to my collection. We have gates so we can close off areas to let the grass grow again that way they have something tasty to eat ( along with their proper diet that I feed them, of course!)
For a wee while we've been planning to section off another area, it's the smallest part of the run, perfect for sectioning off to plant some of the King's seeds "Chicken Greens" ~ this is a mix of seeds that will turn into nice tasty green things that chickens love. You can plant them in trays then take them out of the run to recover, but we went for the plant them in the run idea, with the plan that we'll close that part off to let the plants recover once they've been noshed a bit.
Today we put in the new gate and built the little fence. It wasn't a huge job and we didn't have to buy a thing. We reused an old gate and an old post and we had left over chicken wire from the last run expansion!
You can see we flipped the gate so it was taller.
I dug up a wee bit so that the chickens would scratch around and break up the soil a bit before I plant the seeds in the next couple of days. The packet seems very full of seeds, but I don't know how much of this area it'll cover - we shall see!
We screwed on recycled gudgeon thingies and hung it from an existing post that just happened to be in the right place. Then we cemented in a second post and made a new bit of fence. It didn't take that long and it's just what we wanted. The chickens tried to help but were pretty useless!
Heres a bit more of the run. You can see 2 gates - these close off the area in front of where I was standing so all the kikuyu grass can grow again. The green leafy plants in front are actually huge weeds, but the chickens love them to have dust baths under and lie around in the shade.
Oh and this has nothing to do with chickens, but the camillias are still flowering and I love this one.
What a good idea to let them have seperate areas to rest the ground. Something we did for our pigs but never thought to do for the chickens. I'll follow your example once we move to our new place.
ReplyDeleteSue xx
Good job, and your soil looks so rich there.
ReplyDeleteLove that camellia. Beautiful color.
FlowerLady
Ooo what happy chickens you must have! I share your lovely of our lovely fowl friends, they are just such a pleasure to have around, and of course eggs on tap are a bit fabulous too. I love the idea of closing off areas to regrow for them, although when I do that with my ladies they just spend all their time trying to get into the part that I've fenced off.
ReplyDeleteBirdbrains!
Sue, it really works well, so if you have the space then it's great.
ReplyDeleteFlowerLady, we live right on a volcanic plateau so our soil is totally amazing, plant a stick and it'll grow ( usually!)
Ali, we make the fences high! This one is an experiment - they may fly over it - we'll see!