I assume you mean by 'fence them in' contain them with some sort of fencing/netting in an area that is not used for horticulture, rather than keep them in the chicken yard all the time, or fence round the areas in which you grow veg (= garden). Or have I misunderstood?
Manue is probably right.
No, we will keep them in the chicken yard. Which is the way it was always meant to be, if the chickens who grew up here had not learned how to fly over or crawl under the netting.
). Flowers and plants we only put in if they are useful for the bees or the soil, in the middle of the vegetable garden where they can benefit from the automatic watering. Not because we find them beautiful or because we enjoy them.
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500m2 is very generous for a chicken run. It's more than half my whole block of land.No, we will keep them in the chicken yard. Which is the way it was always meant to be, if the chickens who grew up here had not learned how to fly over or crawl under the netting.
I'm afraid I am going to be long and tedious explaining, and it doesn't help using a foreign language to be concise.
First, we only have a vegetable garden. We are not flower people or gardeners at all, (even though my partner actually took a diploma of ornamental gardening in his early thirties
Then, the topography of the property is, as you know, all in terraces. The three vegetable gardens are spread on two levels of terraces, the one in front of our house and the one just below, on the same level as the chicken yard. So naturally when the chickens come out of the yard they are either in the garden, or in front of our house. The rest of the fenced in property consists of three terraces above, six or seven below, and a big slope of field underneath the chicken yard which has not been terraced. The chickens sometimes range to the two terraces above. They never, ever go below. I believe it's maybe because they can't see the other chickens and their yard from below, because there would be a very nice place for them just underneath their yard to which they never go.
Last year we tried blocking the most direct accesses to the garden with netting, and adding temporary contractions to protect seedlings and freshly turned soil. This was an epic fail. The chickens always managed to find a way in, any place forbidden seems especially attractive in fact, and with the winds we have, any thing not solidly anchored in the soil ends up dozens of meters away every other day. So it added a lot of work because every time we planted some seeds or seedlings they dug it up at least once and we had to keep chasing them away continuously. I know it works for others, but it doesn't for us.
Our ex-batts never went in the garden. It began with Chipie's hatch in the summer 2022 and because there were just four of them and three were bantam or cross bantam, they didn't do too much damage. This year, the four pullets from Léa's hatch also learned to get out, and Lilly. Théo and Chipie both know how, but Chipie doesn't and Théo only when Gaston is inside the chicken yard.
So we have nine chickens spending the greater part of the day in the garden digging. And they are not just digging on the surface : they have made huge holes all over the place, like a badger, maybe because the soil is so dry they have to go deep to find worms.
Because of the topography, we have only two options really : to fence the garden, on two levels of terrace, which would be a set back to how it first was before we fenced the whole property, or fence the chicken yard. I wanted to fence the garden, but my partner is completely opposed to it. He doesn't want to see a mesh right in front of the house and next to where we eat ; the chicken yard is below the house, so we wouldn't see the mesh as much. And what's more, he doesn't agree to the chickens free-ranging. He is afraid of predation. I am not going to get into arguments with him again for the sake of the chickens. We fought enough over the two roosters issue. So they will live from April to October in the yard of 500 m2, which is not enough to maintain forage, but sufficient to get exercise and stretch their leg. And they will range under supervision whenever we have the time, so most likely daily for one or two hours at least.
Also, we will be naturally downsizing. It seems likely that the three remaining ex-batts and maybe Chipie won't be there next year. We have four chickens from spring 2022 and eight from 2023, and Théo from winter 2021. These 13 will grow old together and unless we have some massive loss, I don't want to ask myself about eventually adding more for a few years, because I think the right number for here would be around ten. So we have two or three years before having to think about it, but I'm not sure anyway I will want to get chickens again. Sometimes it feels like they are doing really good and it's so nice to have them around and at others it feels like a huge commitment and we still can't get them decent health care and struggle with all the issues from their environment.
Black valentine's?
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That one must have been painful coming out
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What is Mélisse doing ?
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Waiting for the nest. When Nieva sees one of the pullet wants to lay she stays on purpose an hour after laying. They ended up having a fight.
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Blanche pretended to dustbathe again today.
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Nougat was in great shape in spite of her giant egg.
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Blanche ate pieces of banana all day and nothing else. I don't think the banana diet is a healthy thing but it's still better than fasting completely.
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Camouflage Piou-piou.
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Another first : Merle is eating broccoli florets. Not the leaves or the stems but the small florets that sprouted after I cut the main head.
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Cocorico.
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Blanche managed to jump on the trunk to escape Théo's attentions. But then she couldn't get down.
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You've certainly nailed your colours to the mast with that statement.
I have a feeling this will not be the final word on the situation.
I think that's a misreading. ManueB cares for her chickens more than most people on BYC, and most people would (sensibly, in my view) put relationships with partners above a relatively minor restriction on their chickens' freedom of movement.
