Tilling the Chicken Pen

[Southerngirl]

Thought I would share what we do to our outdoor run for the chickens. 2-3 times a year we use the tiller in the outside runs. We till about 3 inches deep to allow the soil to freshen and the sunshine to heat the soil. The chickens have a field day pulling up bugs and worms and dust bathing. Just thought others might not have thought of this and this would help.

 

[Camelot Farms]

 

[georgialee]

We're going to do this in the next day or two... so much easier than shoveling it out!

 

[fasbendera]

Great idea. Do you try and seed anything after it is tilled in?

 

[speckledhen]

Unless you can keep them off of it for a few weeks, you really cannot seed the runs. They'll eat all the seed, trust me. We try to till our pens from time to time and add some pulverized limestone.

 

[joedie]

I think I'll try that tomorrow. At least they should have some fun with the worms!

 

[SJMike]

What a great idea! Your hens must really love you for it. I put wire down on the bottom of our inner city run to keep the ground-hog & racoons out otherwise... awesome idea! Still have to do it the old fashioned way... shovelling - either way... it gets into the compost.

 

[wildorchid053]

we get so much rain here there isn't any poo left.. each week it gets rained away.. anything i should do ? it is full of really green grass still to..and it has been all summer

 

[wombat]

We'd built a long, thin run so that half was in the sun, and half is in the shade. We can fence off the sunny end with some chicken wire and seed it with whatever cover crop seed is handy, but they strip it to dirt again in a matter of days.