permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

Protected beds to supply chickens with greens year round; an in-place
chicken tractor.

My Facebook friend Keith writes: "grazing wire top barrels with Proso
millet, to give full season green munchies"

This gives me an interesting idea. How about a fixed-in-place chicken
tractor. Take two 12 foot pieces of 6 foot galvanized mesh fence wire
(something more durable than dog wire). Lay out two beds 6'X12' each side
by side with 6"X6" nontoxic treated beams. Fertilize the soil with rock
dusts, greensand, rock phosphate, biochar, compost and manure -
fork/spade/hoe or rototill that in. Then attach the 2 fence wire pieces to
the beams with the wire about 4-6 from the ground. Use metal T posts laid
across the beams to keep the fencewire from sagging. Seed the fertilized,
tilled soil with a succession of greens for the chickens. They will eat
what grows through the fence wire and it will continue to regrow
(cut-and-come-again greens) and provide food for them most of the year. The
wire will keep them from scratching the ground and uprooting all the plants
and they in turn will provide continuous fertilizer for the greens. This
could become a permanent fixture in the chicken yard and not require any
maintenance until the wire rusts and has holes.

-- 
Lawrence F. London, Jr.
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
https://sites.google.com/site/avantgeared