3 Ways Chickens Can Help You Garden

3 Ways Chickens Can Help You Garden

Chickens can be beneficial to your gardening and are very helpful little critters. From helping to till your soil, to creating compost, and pest control. We dive deeper into chickens in our Agriscaping Mastery Program, but for today we wanted to share a few ways in which chickens can be helpful to you and your garden.

When caring for chickens it is important to keep them happy and healthy. They love to eat bugs and plants. They get a lot of health benefits from medicinal herbs just like we do. They like to hunt and harvest their own food. If you are currently feeding them pellets right now you can train them to hunt their food by first switching to crumbles then move them on to foraging for their food.

If you are going to move your chickens away from your edibles you will want to start small. Move the cage a little at a time in short distances. It is also better to lead the chicken rather than chasing them.

About a month before you are going to start planting your garden you can let your chickens run free in the soil. They will till up the soil, eat your weeds and your weed seeds, and leave nitrogen pellets to enrich your soil.

If you let your chickens roam your garden about twice a year (in the Fall and in the Spring) they can help to manage your bugs. Let them eat up about 30% of your vegetation and then move them.

Chickens are also great helpers when it comes to making compost. Compost needs to be turned frequently to oxygenate it. Chickens can tear that compost pile apart and you will just need to pile it back up. While they are helping to turn the compost they will also be leaving behind their nitrogen pellets to help your compost nourish.

You can learn more about chickens and composting inside the Agriscaping Mastery Program at https://agriscaping.com/diy-mastery/