Chicken clean up crew
Created on 3/10/2010
Chickens are the hot new addition to backyards with very good reason. They’re loaded with personality, provide delicious eggs on a regular basis and do wonders on keeping down the bug problem.
Dave, a friend of ours in Bozeman, has four hens – Heidi, Hilda, Helen and Henrietta – that congregate around him when he’s outside clucking and coo’ing. Dave calls them the “Super Hens” and jokes that he can read prophecies in their egg yolks on everything from long term forecasts to election results. They act more like pets than what most people expect in poultry, and are a daily delight for him. When Dave is enjoying the sights and ambience of Europe he often writes that he misses his chickens. That says a lot!
I’m delighted that we’re stepping into the world of chickens this spring. Grant is building a portable chicken house so we can move it throughout the yard fertilizing as we go and aerating the lawn.
Chickens are pretty easy to keep. They need a home that’s dry, well ventilated and protects them from the wind. For cold climates, it’s great if you have an insulated house where you can at least hang a lamp. In warmer climates, keeping them cool is more important, which means adding a small fan to keep air moving.
They need roughly 2 square feet of floor space inside the coop, including one nesting box for every couple of hens. The ones I’ve seen with foot-square nesting (12 x 12 x 12) boxes seem to work very well. Outside, most poultry experts say chickens do best with ten square feet per bird, although turning them loose is even better, particularly for pest control.
Chickens make a fantastic clean up crew. I’ve heard from people who have terrible flea problems, particularly in warm areas of the country, and chickens keep them under control. Same with fire ants. You’d thing they’d be awful to eat, but obviously to chickens, they’re a spicy bite on the menu!
I’m looking forward to having the hens around to hopefully keep the grasshopper population to manageable levels. The protein does wonders for their diet while keeping the hoppers from eating ours. Allowing them to free range make eggs that are healthful and delicious. This is one reason free range eggs are more expensive in the store. Now we’ll have them in the backyard in addition to enjoying garden help.
The only drawback is the chickens will clean out the garden faster than the bugs if they’re let inside the area. I’m going to have to install a short fence to keep them out of bounds, or I might discover newly tilled areas and no veggies. One of their favorite treats is hanging a head of cabbage for them to munch, but they don’t differentiate between cabbage given to them and cabbage growing.
When the garden is done in the late fall, I will let them cruise through cleaning up spent plants and pick off frosted produce. They also take care of any insects that are overwintering near the surface of the soil or under plant litter. It’s a win-win for everyone.
