Chicken clock house

[blossom]

Hi all,

it has been a long time since I have been on here.
I moved to Australia and have been doing a horticulture course. One more year to go. When I have finished my course we will be buying a house with a bit of land.

I saw in an organic gardening magazine someone had made themselves a chicken 'clock'. It was a hexagon shaped house, with chicken wire coming off each corner, to make 6 seperate parts. Each part has avary wire and a door at the end (wire under ground to stop foxes), so you get a big hexagon. They also had net over the top to stop wild birds and wildlife.

Each internal part of the chicken house had a closable door onto that section of fenced in bit. It also had one side which could open right up for cleaning and an egg collecting bit.

So, the idea is you grow your veggies in all but one part of the 'clock' and when when a section is finished with you let the chickens in who eat the left over bits of plants, dig the soil and fertilise as they go.

I can't find any info on this set up anywhere other than in this one magazine, but it looks great.

I had been planning on making both a chicken house and veggie beds wherever I lived, so this seems like a great idea.

Can anyone think of anything which could be a problem?

I would probably grow espalliered trees on the outside and I would probably have a square house, as it would be easier for me to make, and end up with 8sections. Obviously I will need a fair amount of space for it. I have done a design that would make it about 12m right across and each egde with a door 5m.

Anyone have anything simular already? Does it sound like a totally silly idea?

Thanks

[RedThorn]

Welcome back. Hope the course went well
Silly no. Intruging definately. Will require a lot of space on first thoughts..... Please keep us updated if you find any more info. Sorry I cannot be of more help...

[Hilary B]

The same effect could be achieved by having a 'permanent run' with a concrete base, and open into sections of the vegetable plot from THAT. The permanent run would thus be a widish path, with the house only needing one door into it. This could also be the path the human atrendant uses to access the whole thing. The netting 'roof' would then only be needed over the patch the chooks were using, rather than the whole thing. I suspect it might be easier to build on an allotment.........

[MaureenHall]

I think Snadger was contemplating something similar, he's got hold of a load of doors to make the sides. Bet he'll be here later to tell you all about it. I'd love to have enough land to be able to do that, my idea of heaven

[blossom]

Mmmm, that is also a good idea Hilary. I will have to do some more drawing. Would certainly be easier than triangle shapped beds!

The netting would actually be for the plants not the chickens so would still need to be on all. Here we have parrots and possums which seem to like to eat everything. My pear tree was stripped in a couple of days last week, just as they got ripe!
The two chickens we have at the moment happily free range all day, bless, they are so cute.

We are planning on buying a house with at least an acre, so we should be fine space wise.

[Hilary B]

I hadn't realised where you are Blossom! I think you would need a LOT of people to eat the produce you could get from even a quarter acre, but then it would also take a LOT of fencing!!!!<G>

The trick there would be to decide how many 'rotations' you want, and how many 'chicken fallow' turns would fit in, then work out the size of plot you need for the biggest of those (I would guess either spuds or brassicas) and take it from there.

When we had a decent sized plot, we needed 4/5 rotations, and 2 fallow breaks would have fitted in nicely (we never actually implemented the chicken fallow idea). It would go something like
Spuds, legumes, chooks, LIME, brassicas, roots, chooks. It might be that you would do something different there. You might also want a 'perenials patch' into which the chooks would be allowed when they were more help than hindrance (ie when there were likely to be a lot of pests, and not much for chooks to raid)

[Snadger]

I think Snadger was contemplating something similar, he's got hold of a load of doors to make the sides. Bet he'll be here later to tell you all about it. I'd love to have enough land to be able to do that, my idea of heaven

Yep I've been working on it today! My new coop is octagonal though and made with eight doors!
Theoretically if you've got the space it's an excellent idea! Mine is at the side of my plot though and is quite ornamental! (I'll post a piccie when it's finished as i'm quite proud of it!)

A square or rectangular shed/coop would work just as well though................all you would need to do is cut two popholes in each long side and one in each short side, the fence joint would be in the middle of the long sides and on the four corners, and alternate them accordingly!

[Snadger]

And welcome back blossom!

[blossom]

Thanks very much.

That sounds just like I had been planning snadger. I would love to see how it turns out. We did think about a hexagon as had been done in the magazine article we read, but as hubbie and I are not that handy, I'm sure it would have looked terrible.

I did like the idea of 8 sections, each having a walk way through the middle so two beds in each if you get what I mean. Then at least one would have chickens in at a time. I'm sure I would find enough to grow as we can grow tomatoes, aubergines, water melons etc all outside here (one of the reasons I moved here lol). I might have one growing with clover or something for moving the chickens onto if there is not much green for them to eat.

Hillary's idea is also good, and would certainly be better to irrigate but I have all sorts of visions of my beautiful chicken clock with espallier trees all round, and day lillies on the corners, sweet peas growing up the internal divides. I just think it would look so pretty.
I think I will have to get designing for a pretty non clock one. Like I say much easier for irrigation, which I will need here.

I haven't even started thinking about crop rotation. They don't tend to do it here. The main time without anything growing is the summer rather than the winter, so I will have to do a little chart of the seasons of what I want to grow and see when the best time would be for moving things around.

[Eyren]

That sounds like an excellent idea, blossom - never thought of including chickens in the crop rotation! - though I think it will have to wait until we win the lottery and have enough space

I do let the chooks onto my empty raised beds in the winter (I only grow salad in the back garden - the lottie is for "proper" veg), to scratch up the weeds and eat any pests. They do eat the odd worm as well, but on balance I think it works well.

[di]

It does sound like an excellent idea....but if I were to put it to Andi,think he may be ill!!!
Our current plan is to make a second run that can be accessed from the original,yet somehow shut off most of run one & grow some bits for us & maybe some corn for the chooks,whilst they busy themselves trashing the second one!
I know you're not supposed to use chicken poo for about a year,but does anyone know about growing straight away on the ground they've spent a year "fertilising"...should it be O.K?

[blossom]

Although I have only seen the one 'clock' design I have seen plenty of people who have movable chicken houses and runs which are the same size as their raised beds. They then move it from bed to bed when needed, and all have said it works very well. Not sure if they would stay on the same spot for a whole year though. At certain times of the year I'm sure there would be more beds free than at others.
Certainly nobody has mentioned their plants burning.

[Hilary B]

I would have thought (not tried it) that if you dig in the layer of muck from the surface, perhaps with some plant stuf as well, and then plant something that likes a LOT of muck (eg potatoes) it should be OK If you are doing a 'crop rotation' that includes chooks, then there will probably be a 'next bed' that you can move them on to a few weeks before needing to plant where they just came from. That is also the benefit of having a concrete permanent run from which the veg patches can be accessed. It really isn't going to do them any harm for a week or 2 to only have the concrete run, if you have plenty of straw or whatever else you use.