Changing the Chicken Arrangement

The chickens have spent much of the winter closed in their pen which is basically a greenhouse with a nest box area attached.  On the days that I have been home they have been allowed to run around in the yard, pecking and scratching to their heart's delight.  I have had to keep a couple of garden beds under cover to protect them from the chickens, but they have happily helped till up the soil in the exposed garden beds.  They also have been spreading fertilizer around the yard during their excursions.

Now that the growing season is coming closer I want to make some changes to the way I keep my flock.  I want them to have a yard to scratch in without keeping them closed inside the coop all day.  I also want to move the coop to fresh ground since the area they stayed on all winter was pretty well tilled.  The coop is really heavy and very difficult for me to move alone, but I managed to scoot it a few inches at a time to a new area of the yard.  Around the coop I installed a line of electrified poultry netting so the chickens could run around in the area outside their coop.  This will help to protect them from predators and also contain them in the yard while giving them more area to scratch around in.  I may have to clip their wings to make sure that they stay inside the fence, but most of them seem to get the idea of staying close to the coop.  I will likely get a second roll of fencing to make their yard a little bigger in the future, but for now I will see how well just the one roll works since it is a little pricey for my budget.

When the growing season really starts I hope to start a rotational grazing system with them.  I will move the pen every time the area its on starts to look worn down.  I am hoping to plant the areas with a pasture mix eventually, so the chickens will do the soil prep for me and then move to the next area.  Maybe this year I will be able to make some progress in my battle against the weeds with the help of the chickens.