Beekissed
Garden Master
I don't know if I've ever really thought of a garden without seeing chickens in the picture. In my life those two things go hand in hand and I've seldom had one without the other down through the years. Harvest time brings that home in spades, as all the garden and canning waste is recycled into eggs and meat, with nothing going to waste.
Anything they don't eat gets integrated into and underneath my deep litter in the coop, where all the bugs and worms make short work of it...and those same bugs and worms then become food for the chickens, which then make food for me, so it's a lovely circle of life and good use of all things.
Even pulled weeds go into that deep litter as fodder for the bugs and microorganisms underneath...
I started counting eggs produced in this small flock since the three new pullets from a hatch last fall came into lay this early spring and throughout all three of them going broody and raising chicks, through older hens coming into and out of lay, with no more than 7-8 mature hens on hand at all times but none laying all at once...usually just 2-3 birds laying at a time...and in the past 172 days we've gotten 694 eggs.
During that time I also culled 5 old~ or nonproducing young~ hens and canned 10 jars of meat & broth, produced 28 chicks, while fostering 6 more, which are now growing into a new flock. And that's just a very small flock of birds.
I can't even imagine how many pests I'd have in the garden if they weren't constantly gleaning bugs all day, every day of those seasons. These chickens only get fed once each evening, so the bulk of their daily intake comes from off the land in the form of insects, grubs, worms, lizards, snakes, fallen fruit and greens....and scraps from our kitchen and garden.
I love this symbiotic relationship and I my frugal soul loves that nothing goes to waste, but is recycled to even more food and that goes round and round, season after season and year after year.
To me they have more worth than pigs for recycling food scraps, as they are able to get out and glean food off the land, while also producing protein all year long in the form of fresh eggs. For the long haul, they make more sense to me than just about any other farm animal...eggs, meat, pest bug and snake control, and they reproduce and care for their own replacements and all that on a minimum of feed. If the flock is big enough, they can also pay for their own feed in egg sales alone.
Do you all make chickens part of your gardening plans?
Anything they don't eat gets integrated into and underneath my deep litter in the coop, where all the bugs and worms make short work of it...and those same bugs and worms then become food for the chickens, which then make food for me, so it's a lovely circle of life and good use of all things.
Even pulled weeds go into that deep litter as fodder for the bugs and microorganisms underneath...
I started counting eggs produced in this small flock since the three new pullets from a hatch last fall came into lay this early spring and throughout all three of them going broody and raising chicks, through older hens coming into and out of lay, with no more than 7-8 mature hens on hand at all times but none laying all at once...usually just 2-3 birds laying at a time...and in the past 172 days we've gotten 694 eggs.
During that time I also culled 5 old~ or nonproducing young~ hens and canned 10 jars of meat & broth, produced 28 chicks, while fostering 6 more, which are now growing into a new flock. And that's just a very small flock of birds.
I can't even imagine how many pests I'd have in the garden if they weren't constantly gleaning bugs all day, every day of those seasons. These chickens only get fed once each evening, so the bulk of their daily intake comes from off the land in the form of insects, grubs, worms, lizards, snakes, fallen fruit and greens....and scraps from our kitchen and garden.
I love this symbiotic relationship and I my frugal soul loves that nothing goes to waste, but is recycled to even more food and that goes round and round, season after season and year after year.
To me they have more worth than pigs for recycling food scraps, as they are able to get out and glean food off the land, while also producing protein all year long in the form of fresh eggs. For the long haul, they make more sense to me than just about any other farm animal...eggs, meat, pest bug and snake control, and they reproduce and care for their own replacements and all that on a minimum of feed. If the flock is big enough, they can also pay for their own feed in egg sales alone.
Do you all make chickens part of your gardening plans?
