Chickens in the Garden

I wanted to brag on my chickens a little and show you what good garden helpers they are. 😊

This upper quadrant of the garden is a perfectly bare square of dirt since I put my bantams on it this past winter. I have 6 silkies and 2 other bantams in that coop and they have been way more aggressive getting after every green and growing thing in their area. The smaller fenced area was to keep them out of the asparagus patch. 

The big chickens further over have done a lot to keep the weeds down in their area too. They had a big pile of compost they decimated for me. I've taken to making a pile in one corner of the garden each year of all manure, clippings and scraps. I don't want to waste any of the good stuff. 

I'll lime, till and plant the top half of the garden just as soon as it ever quits raining long enough. 

I've been working with these Poultry Net electric fences from Premier1 for about 6 years now. They are amazingly effective and I can't say enough good things about them. They're super easy for me to move by myself and I've had no losses to dogs, opossums, coons, etc. since I started using them. I have lost a couple to hawks, but that was while allowing the chickens to range outside the fence. The fences are strong and haven't degraded in that time either. I have three of them now for rotating their pasture and keeping different flocks separated. Occasionally I will get some stubborn girl who wants to fly out, but I just clip the flight feathers on one wing and that puts an end to that.

So anyway, this has been an easy way for me to cultivate and fertilize my garden and I highly recommend it. Those accursed weeds can be very discouraging for me otherwise. The droppings are incorporated quickly and thoroughly enough that it doesn't get "hot".

RIP Sunbeam

Well, I was having a great day today getting so much done outside "spring cleaning" the yard.  I was really on a roll until I found my favorite hen, Sunbeam...or what was left of her, lying dead in the chicken pasture.

WHY do they always go for your favorite chickens first?  :(  She laid such pretty blue eggs.

I think it must have been an opossum.  I had found a smashed mess of eggs in the nest boxes twice last week and suspected it could have been an opossum or else I had a terrible outbreak of egg-eating going on.  Unfortunately I went with the latter assumption and went to work building a new roll-out nest.  If I'd gotten to work patching the holes under the chicken barn, this wouldn't have happened.  So of course, I feel terribly guilty.

I didn't tell little Sweetie Pie and was glad she didn't see it.  She would be devastated.

The chickens had dug out several dusting holes at the back of the chicken barn and the rain had washed out the soil as well.  I had started skirting the building with wire and big rocks last fall, but never got it finished.  Well, it's finished now.  My coop and run are now impenetrable.  I'll keep the run closed and only let them out into their fenced pasture when I am home (at least until I get electric run on the little pasture.) 

Up until now, I'd only lost a couple chickens to loose dogs.  I suppose it could have been a hawk, but it was most likely an opossum.  Nasty opossums.  I am so bummed out.

This was a perfect day otherwise.  Well, that--and I broke an egg in my pocket this afternoon.  You'd think I'd know better by now than to put eggs in my pockets.  Or leave open holes under the coop... ((Sigh))

Not So Creepy

...when they're little!

He's actually kinda cute.  I guess all baby animals are, in their own way!

I went down right at dusk to put the chickens to bed and found this little guy crawling around on a shelf in my chicken barn.  Looking to get into my feed, no doubt. 

I scooped him easily into a bucket and took him up to the garage where my husband was busy sharpening his chainsaw blades.  He looked into the bucket and jumped back a bit, surprised.

This baby opossum is only about 8 inches long, nose to rump.  I didn't have the heart to kill it, so I had hubby haul it off a few miles and turn it loose out in the woods.  He hasn't tried to kill any chickens yet, so I'll let him off this time!  I'm sure there are probably more of his kin out there to keep an eye out for...

We shot a big one a couple of months back that was trying to get the chickens.  And we also found the head--just the head--of a smaller one lying in the yard a few weeks ago.  I'm not sure what would eat a whole opossum and leave only the head... We have a lot of barn cats up here.  Must have been very hungry, whatever it was!