Designed Soil Disturbance with Chickens
We’re moving the Chicken Caravan 30, aka ‘The Chickenator,’ into the main crop system which is a lovely new playground for the chickens to explore.
They will have plenty to eat as they scratch their way through the foliage cleaning up after the last harvest. They’ll also look for insects and various crawling bugs to eat wiping out any continuity in pest life cycles. Naturally, they fertilize the ground wherever they roam and provide plenty of eggs.
Once the chickens are done performing our designed disturbance, these garden beds will be reshaped, not a required but we feel that it’s worth it, ready for the next crop instalment.
Chickens are a magnificent gateway animal to use in your integrated animal systems.
Very easy to manage. The Chicken Caravan 30 can hold up to 30 hens (ours houses a flock of 25 Isa Browns. These chickens are egg-laying birds, and we are getting 25 every day 😉) and is a moveable chicken coop with auto doors to let chickens out and lock them away at night.
For more info check out the webinar I had with Daniel from Chicken Caravan, here:
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My Papa’s Garden Hens, in Blue Skies Central Texas, USA
I grew up watching my Papa interact with Earth, Plants, Orchards, Children & Animals as Divine Blessings:
Permaculture e-ltr, this image is so evocative of my father’s garden.
When about to plant new he so enjoyed “inviting in the Ladies…” his laying hens of 20 Rhode Island Reds–from their large fenced yard and chicken roosts into his adjacent fenced 1/4 acre garden. Papa knew what a treat it would be for them to dive into “dust baths” then scratch & root in drying plants, fresh clover or vetch in the exposed 1/4 acre garden soil. Dashing around, the hens would delight in their day’s adventures as much as Papa did their frolic. (Every few years he would switch out chicken yard and its well-composted years of poulet-poo-poo with the aerated vegetable garden)
Papa would work around the clumps of “ladies”, much as his single rooster would stride the garden, seemingly advising his hens, both of them giving the hens the right-of-way, or Papa sat on a bench in the shade just to watch, laugh, sometimes chat with them.
Beautiful memories of a beloved father & a gifted Perma-Master Gardener of Luther Burbank School, 1930s-1980
Thanks for PermaCulture Newsletter.
Hello. We live in south central Texas. My son-in-law is really interested in building a food forest. He has about 10 acres to work with. I was wondering if there was a book you could recommend that would deal with Texas. Texas seems to be kind of a “specialized” spot at far as planting due to the hear and low rainfall.