Chickens and Fruit Bushes? Good or bad combination?

[wulf]

We've got chickens in the garden and they are doing okay - a decent coop with plenty of space and a fenced area for them to scratch around in during the day. However, I am concerned that the outside area isn't going to offer any protection once the local fox gets hungry and I can also see that, even after a month, the grass inside the fenced area is substantially degraded compared to the rest of the garden.

Therefore, I'm considering some options to present to the members of my community for ways to improve things. One option is to buy or build a chook-tractor and move them from place to place. That would spread the damage but is going to be heavy to move and potentially a waste of the existing coop (unless they can be let into the tractor and then moved to a patch where they can graze all day and take temporary shelter). Option two would be what I believe is called the 'Balfour System', where they can be let onto two or more different areas of grass so each patch gets time to regenerate. I've got some ideas of how a modular system could be constructed to give suitable space and portability.

However, I'm also thinking that we could make use of a sunny south-east facing wall alongside the veg patch to grow fruit on bushes and small trees. We might want to erect a cage to protect them. Do you think the chooks could live inside said cage (suitably reinforced against predators)? It would be a generous area and a pleasant natural environment, with the bonus to the chickens of any fruit that drops to the ground and probably a higher incidence of insects). Or would it be a recipe for disaster, with the chickens likely to damage the plants, pick and pick fruit off the bushes and trees and perhaps even decimate the population of useful insects?

Wulf

[Odsox]

The only experience I've had Wulf is amongst ordinary bushes, and I found that the chicken love to make dust baths in the roots of said bushes.
It's obviously the driest spot when the bushes are in leaf, but the outcome is the roots get well and truly exposed.
Not too bad for deep rooted ones, but may be a problem for shallow roots and fruit bushes that shoot from below ground level like black currants.

[Thomzo]

It is possible to make a chook tractor or moveable run which isn't too heavy. See if you can find some old office desks which are made with metal legs. The wooden top can be taken off and the whole thing wrapped up with chicken wire. I got a couple a year or so ago and they make great tractors.

You can train chickens to walk from one run to another with a bit of patience. I have a run attached to the hen house that the chickens are in during the week when I'm at work. At the weekend, I walk them across to another, moveable, run just for the afternoon, once they have laid their eggs and don't need access to the nesting boxes.

I also put my chickens in my fruit cage in the same way. A couple of them go in there for a couple of hours. They do a great job hoovering up the insects, turning over the soil and clearing up the dropped leaves. At night they go back into their nice, safe hen house. That way, you can keep the chickens out of the fruit cage when the flowers and fruit are forming.

Lots of possibilities.

Zoe

[Milims]

We have our chooks in the garden. They have a lockable shelter with a run for at night time or really bad weather and the rest of the time they just potter round the garden. They take themselves off to bed when it gets dark and we just drop the pop hole shutter and then open it int he morning. As to the fruit bushes etc - the chooks ate all our rapsberries and strawberried this year, so the plan is simply to fence them off next year. This year we constructed a simple fence from chicken wire and plastic mesh, that can be moved around as we want. It's proved rather useful as it keeps the chickens off while things are growing but then can be moved to let them scratch etc at the end of the season - which means that they keep the weeds down, stop the soil clumping and clear the ground of insect nasties for us! Having said all that - there is always someone here during the day to keep an eye on them.

[Millymollymandy]

My run is divided into two and it has worked really well as one side regenerates whilst the other is being trashed. Granted I do have a large space for them (each one is the size of your average London garden ) but I've seen plenty of runs around here which are just as big or bigger, without even a single bit of weed on the bare, dead soil.

As for the fruit, it may be dependant on what fruit bushes they are. We have wild raspberries in our chook run, and when they ripen I hold down the canes for the girls to have a munch. They love them! However I've no idea whether they like other fruit such as currants as mine are in my fenced off (from chooks and ducks) veg patch. Don't let them near strawberries!

Good luck Wulf and I bet you are finding life a bit different from when you were growing upside down toms in a tiny London garden!

[wulf]

Sounds like a fruit cage wouldn't be the ideal place for permanent chook lodging but might be an excellent extra area for visits (giving other sections of the garden time to recover). We've got our weekly house meeting tonight so I'll present my research so far - thanks for all the input.

Wulf

ps. MMM - yep, loving it!

[Millymollymandy]

I think that it would be a perfectly OK spot for them in autumn/winter when the fruit bushes are going over or dormant, especially if there is sun in that area, even if it is just for occasional visits.

However I'm a bit unsure whether late winter/early spring when the buds get bigger is wise, as I've seen wild birds eat buds off bushes and trees. Might be worth it as an experiment though and keep an eye on them!