Our Chicken Hilton looked like shantytown over the winter with plastic and tarps along the front edge to keep out the rain. Unlike ducks, chickens aren't fans of wet feathers and are not out scratching around if it's raining. The tarps keeps the whole area dry with a couple little peek-out areas. On sunny days, I roll up the tarps and let in the air and sunshine.Meanwhile, when it warms up I re-seed the outdoor pastures and the girls get to take advantage of breakfast salad. Something funny - when they eat too many greens, there is a greenish cast to the poo.
Hahaha - roughage! So then I end up portioning off the pasture and not letting them free-feed.
Plus, the flock can scratch, eat and go thru the whole 8 x 12 area in a couple of days. At least by giving them a little at a time, it makes it last longer. Rotationally, the other side is growing, too.
It's funny to see them trying to get inside the fencing: I guess they can see or smell that fresh green foliage. Sometimes, Jasmine and Kiwi figure out how to duck under the fence and get inside, stomp around and munch. When I come down at the end of the day to close them inside the big pen, they are waiting to get out only because they perceive that I have something better to eat than salad!
For the pastures, I use a mix of seeds: barley, various kale and lettuce, wheat, alfalfa, and various clovers depending on the time of year. And I learned early on that I have to cover the whole area with a plastic tarp during germination or else the roving band of juncos will get in and eat all the seeds. Oh yeah, a sparsely germinated field means those little birdies got a free lunch....
You'll notice that my 'pastures' are top-covered with a green plastic "fencing", in rolls at Home Depot.
It's the best flying predator control I've found and I zip-tie the overlapped edges so nothing can crawl in.
So far, knock on wood, it's worked great. Now about 6 years later it is kind of staring to get brittle and probably will have to replace soon. But, for the investment, it's a great solution.
[See earlier blog on loosing Blondie to a hawk when we let the girls free range].
