Chicken run
While they are valued for their eggs, there is something else chickens produce that is just as important, says Bob
WHENEVER folk talk about getting chickens, they’re mostly interested in getting fresh eggs. It’s rather an obvious reason. However, a gardener should look on a chicken run and coop as their own fertiliser factory.
You see, it’s easy to make garden compost – this is a good general feed for your soil, adding fertility – but it rather lacks oomph. The sort of oomph you get when you use wellrotted manure instead. Now, chickens can lay lots of eggs, but they also more regularly lay far more highly concentrated munitions-grade droppings.
So strong are these droppings that they will rapidly kill plants if you foolishly apply them undiluted or ameliorated by mixing with something less fierce. Thus, most often, their droppings (along with their moulted feathers and bedding waste) are added to the compost heap to make it motor. It’s one of the best accelerators, and their manure makes for much richer compost.
Also, as you give your garden thinnings and weedings to the hens, they scratch it around, getting not only much of their food for free but also eating many of the weed seeds, making you a cleaner compost. Surprisingly, hens are not difficult to look after – they are pretty tough, and seldom suffer disease. They need a run, a dry airy hut with a horizontal pole to roost on, a box to lay their eggs in, water and food. They love sunflower heads and sweetcorn cobs, most fruits, brassica leaves, grit, crushed shells and treats from the pet shop – not too much, though, as fat hens won’t lay.
If you buy point-of-lay pullets now, they will likely start laying eggs as soon as they’ve settled in and as the days brighten in the coming new year.
By the way, you don’t need a cockerel – they will lay, anyway!
“They lay munitions-grade droppings”