Chickens in Garden Over Winter

[Jane11]

I just fenced in our garden space with our solar-electric chicken fence which allows our 28-bird flock to fertilize our 2,800 sq ft garden over winter.
We cleaned out the coop and dumped ALL the litter into the center of the garden. We butchered our meat chickens and dumped ALL the feathers into the center of the garden. The chickens have been scratching, pecking, and pooping all over everything. Which is lovely. Less work for me in the long run.
My question is this; I have a giant pile of wood chips that was dumped about 5-6 weeks ago. We use this for mulching our flower beds and the chicken run. Can I dump a nice 5” layer in the garden? Would it break down over the next 5 months well enough for me to plant in May?
Once again… 28 chickens and 2,800 sq ft.
I just don’t know the ratio of decomposition with that many birds and sq ft.

Thanks so much!

 

[Debbie292d]

Maybe someone will come here that knows that but I'd post the question in the Gardening Forum or in one of the threads therein.

I personally would want that broken down a little bit more as I'm pretty sure here it would still be mostly whole come spring so if you didn't mind working around it in the soil, I'd say why not!

 

[aart]

Can I dump a nice 5” layer in the garden? Would it break down over the next 5 months well enough for me to plant in May?

I would save the wood chippings for the flowers and chickens.
It's not likely they will break down fast enough to be anything but 'nitrogen stealers' in the garden soil.

 

[Dominique King]

I have read a lot about having your chickens in a garden.
And yes it us incredibly beneficial for you and for your tiny dinosaurs.
It keeps them busy and keeps you from having to do more work so kudos to you!
I used to have 30 chooks but coons got to em and now I am down to 24 so you have more than me now!
And I agree with the other on looking on gardening fourm on BYC.
Good luck!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I have a giant pile of wood chips that was dumped about 5-6 weeks ago. We use this for mulching our flower beds and the chicken run. Can I dump a nice 5” layer in the garden? Would it break down over the next 5 months well enough for me to plant in May?

The way I use wood chips is to use them in landscaping beds over landscaping cloth the first year. I also lay down landscaping cloth along one side of my fenced garden inside the fence and cover that with wood chips so I have a good place to walk when the garden is soaking wet. I hate walking in a muddy garden but sometimes I want to collect something for supper. That also keeps the grass from growing in the garden from outside of the fence. On the other three sides of the garden I put down a strip of heavy plastic and cover that with wood chips to stop grass from growing through the fence and into the garden.

The wood chips I use are from a utility that was clearing trees and brush from lines so they can be from all different kinds of trees. Some wood breaks down really quickly, some may last a long time so a lot turns into compost during that first year but some doesn't. In spring I separate the wood chips that are left and use them to mulch veggies in the garden over a layer of newspaper. I have not seen any evidence of nitrogen leaching from the wood breaking down, perhaps because it is on paper. The compost that it makes gets turned into the landscaping beds from those wood chips so it nourishes the landscaping plants. With that strip in the garden I work that compost into the garden. I also reclaim the compost and weathered wood chips from that area around the garden. If you don't clean it up grass and weeds will take root in that compost. It's hard for a garden to ever have enough compost but it can take work.

The old wood chips that I used for mulch in the garden mostly break down into compost during that growing season. The ones that don't break down get worked into the soil where they decompose. I do not add any nitrogen anywhere in this process with the aim of helping the wood decompose but some crops (like corn) get nitrogen fertilizer which would help with decomposition.

You can easily tell which garden rows I mulched the previous year. You obviously get nutritional benefits from the compost but in my clayey soil I notice much better drainage and tilth. It drains better and is easier to work.

My chickens do not get to clean up the garden but when I clean out the chicken coop in the fall the bedding (wood shavings) and poop it contains gets spread over the garden to decompose over the winter. I till it in so it is ready for planting time. I consider you having your chickens in there pooping and over the winter an excellent use of them. I'm just not set up for that.

Jane, I'd be reluctant to put a 5" layer of wood chips on that garden even with the chickens in there pooping and scratching. I'm not sure it will break down that well by planting time. If I tried that I'd want to till or turn it into the soil where it is much more likely to decompose over winter. You'll still have wood chips left from certain woods like oak or cedar, but it should be workable.

 

[Jaebird]

Don't know if this is too late to be helpful, but I have a lot of experience with wood chips in the garden, though not in combination with chickens (which I just got this summer). I don't know if 5" of wood chips will break down by spring but I don't think that's a question you need to worry about. They will be wonderful for your garden, shifting the soil microbiome so that you have few if any weeds. Whatever chips are still there in the spring, just move them aside to plant and then replace them as mulch around your plants.

I would definitely put them on your garden, though use them first to give a good layer of mulch to any young trees and shrubs you have.

The two things I strongly advise against are tilling them into the soil and using landscaping cloth. The cloth will break down into microplastics in your soil, and get taken up by your plants, your chickens, and you. They have terrible health effects. And besides, with wood chips you won't have weeds anyway, so there's no reason to use landscaping fabric.

Tilling wood chips into the soil is where you get a problem with them stealing nitrogen. They take nitrogen from the soil to decompose, and this happens just on their surface, where they touch the soil. So just having that thin layer of contact between woodchip mulch and the surface of the soil isn't enough to be a problem. But when they get mixed into the soil, they have a tremendous amount of surface area contacting the soil and they will steal nitrogen like crazy. I made that mistake and my plants actually lost their green color and turned albino. As soon as I gave them nitrogen, they turned green again and started growing. I created a lot of extra work for myself by making that mistake!

If you've already done it, you can correct for it by amending the soil with blood meal and/or sowing a cover crop of peas in early spring. Both things worked for me.

Hope that helps!

 

[Klutch]

Like mentioned before do not till the woodchips in, but you can spread it thick and let the chicken and creepy crawlies break it down. In the spring before you till, just rake of the chis ant till. If you have leaves all the better.