We hope to transform our chicken yard from a barren, rocky patch of ground into a thriving, plant-filled space. Our goal is to establish a variety of plants that provide forage and shelter for our chickens, and to create a system that stabilizes and builds soil rather than depletes it.
We began with rocky and compacted soil, overloaded with nutrients and prone to erosion. In the fall of 2023, we spread heaps of wood chips around the chicken yard, to soak up excess nutrients and improve the structure of the soil. Through the winter, the chickens tilled the wood chips into the soil. When warm weather returned in the spring, we moved the chickens back out into the pastures and gardens around the farm. At this point, the yard is given a break from the chickens for the duration of the warm season.
This was our opportunity to introduce plants into the yard. We used a rototiller to loosen up some of the soil, and then broadcast cover crop seeds, and began transplanting plants into the ground. We are experimenting with a variety of annual and perennial plants that provide good forage and shelter for chickens, including comfrey, elderberry, hazelnut, currants, seaberry, apricot, sunchokes, various mints, tithonia, sunflowers, squash, and pearl millet.
Some of the plants are meant to be grazed down quickly as a living mulch, or as a kind of sacrifice to appease the ravenous chickens. Others are meant to grow into a multi-layered canopy of trees and shrubs that produce edible fruits and attract insects. However, many of these transplants are still small and would be pulverized by the chickens. To prevent this, we protected some of the plants using small wire cages. Big heavy rocks and logs also help protect plants, and create a more varied environment for the chickens.
Over time, the system will become more sustainable, cycling nutrients from manure back into plant tissues and healthy soil. It will be a more ethical way to raise chickens, giving them access to all their favorite things so they can live the best and healthiest life possible. This system connects us with our food and the land, fostering a strong land ethic and sense of place.
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The purpose of this work is to demonstrate a variety of food production systems and engage the community in sustainable & ethical land management. It is intended to provide food as well as interdisciplinary educational opportunities for people of all ages & backgrounds.
People of all ages and backgrounds reside on campus and participate in farming and gardening activities as part of their education. We hope to create more productive outdoor learning spaces and opportunities to demonstrate ideas such as agroecology, permaculture, and sustainable food production.
Some of the work we want to demonstrate are so-called “alternative” or “non-conventional” agricultural practices. These include disciplines such as agroecology (agriculture that mimics natural ecological systems), permaculture (sustainable & self-sufficient design), regenerative agriculture (conservation approach that focuses on topsoil regeneration, biodiversity, improving water cycle, biosequestration, & mitigating climate change), agroforestry & silvopasture (integration of trees & shrubs with animals), organic agriculture (growing & processing food without the use of synthetic fertilizers & pesticides), and food sovereignty (the right to healthy & culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound & sustainable methods), among others.
This YouTube channel and these videos are for educational purposes and for my own personal documentation of various projects.
21 Comments
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Relentless foraging!! That’s chickens!!!
Man, I really want to get a few chickens. It's not a true agroecosystem without animals. I mean, my cats get in the garden and probably shit in there, but that doesn't count.
Videography, appreciated.
Question: Do you need to supplement your chicken's feed? I am looking to see if I can raise chickens without the need for supplemental feed. I am in a tropical environment (Costa Rica) to know about the ecosystem.
You could set up some composting piles for the autumn and winter for chickens to keep busy with, as well as vermicomposting bins and you could throw around some fermented seeds to encourage chickens to go out in the winter. Maybe you can rear black soldier fly larvae in the barn where it is warm. Collect some food scraps from restaurants nearby and pile them up in the garden for the chickens.
I don't even haven a garden nor chickens, but seeing your happy plump, absolutely healthy looking chickens running happily through the greenery makes me so happy! 😀
I utilized wood chips during winter months in the chicken run. I use straw to layer on top of wood chips. This insulation keeps the ground from freezing. So the manure flows down and accumulates during winter months. Microbes stay alive and do their job to break stuff down. Even in the coldest winters in northern Virginia.
Not that bad even at its worst.
In spring,take a garden rake and pull back large debris. Shovel out compost and layer on top of gardens as needed. Water… Done.
I took plastic pallets,laid them down in a corner of their run. Covered with clear plastic for a week and the vegetation was growing everywhere. I mive the pallets and let the chickens eat it. I move the pallets,not the chickens. Way easier for my property. This way they always have fresh vegetation to eat.
Rent them out to farmer who have "dead" field's. I feed the chickens the grains the farmers want planted and send them out. They pull down the vegetation there and poop the new out and plant it by scratching. The next season,the field is bright and vibrant.
🐔💪 chicken power!
Wow that's epic! You explained that so well! New sub here
Good system.
On my new Homestead, I am compartmentalising about 4 areas of 5 acres, by erecting permanent boundaries that livestock cannot breach.
I have a bit more than an acre (5300m2). I have 6 chickens plus a very old one and a rooster. I let them free in the morning but have to lock them in because of eagles by noon . Then, one/two hours before sunset, they are free again.
I have to check them every 15m or they eat everything. Also, if I put compost around fruit trees, it's gone in 10s. Mulch in the vegetables, gone. Not easy but I don't like animals closed the all day.
I am trying to solve this very problem and am going to try planting some bushes that I think will take heavy hits and still keep going like goji and maybe elderberries. Also thinking of doing some heavy arborist chip layering around these to keep the open soil from eroding with the hope that the manure will work with them. I'd like to get turned compost from a chicken yard by somehow using them to turn it. Thinking over time layer with leaf mulch and if not available old hay that doesn't get used up or maybe even shavings. Also thinking mulberry in a "step over" espalier type form and possibly fig done the same way. With any luck some sunflowers etc might grow and make it like you did along with some other seeds scattered in. Ideally we want to grow enough food to not buy feed for any of our birds using this, an area designated just for growing perennial type foods and vermiculture plus anything we can produce in some raised beds. Just getting a bit too broke down old for large garden beds and they don't make a lot of sense to us anyway. Just getting started on these concepts so time will tell. It will evolve until we get it tweaked for N Texas weather.
If you have a small chicken yard the best thing to do is fill it with tons of wood chips, this way the chickens would turn that into compost
I would suggest add a few rabbits to the mix. If you grow them in a cage system above the chickens their pellets will bring insects and larva for the chickens to eat. And the rabbits can produce meat/fur/fiber
doesnt even list a single plant used
My girls made a barren waste in the 'safe pen' outside their coop. I let them graze on days I'm home with them. The only thing left there is one grape vine which outproduces the other 3 put together
There's a video from the carbon cowboys where they use cows in a rotational grazing system (much larger system obvs) to much the same effect. Trampling the vegetation as much as eating it and the manuring too. But one fella runs his chicken tractor through the paddocks after the cattle so the chicken can scratch the patties and remove the larvae from them, helping to break the flypest life cycle and free protein for the chickens. Bravo..
impressive Gypsy caravan for the ladies
Stop using the words sustainable and ethical in this video. These things have nothing to do with farming just stop it. Your project is not a new idea except using socialist words. Just enjoy your farm as nothing is sustainable nor ethical according to PETA. Just be a normal chicken person or don't make these videos. As you don't have 10 years or 20 from how you talk about the dirt or the chickens. Having experienced all that you say your an expert in you are not. Novice and socialist words equals the end of me watching this wokeness mixed with farming.
really great video, very informative. I would also divide the yard to 3-4 sections, the chicken coop in the center with 4 doors and opening the one where you want the chickens to go. Rotating every few weeks