enteligent hen of wourld

Last year I had a fenced chicken run close to the house. Everyday we would empty a bucket of food scraps for the chickens to rummage through and collect a couple dozen eggs per day. They loved the scraps and we loved the eggs, but chickens can do so much more than lay eggs.The key to harnessing chicken labor, if you will, is in understanding a chickens behavior.As I mentioned , chickens naturally love to scratch the ground for seeds, bugs and grit and are quite content doing so all day long from sunrise to sunset.If they are contained, as in a pen or chicken run, they will eventually find everything there is to find in that area and get bored.Yes, chickens get bored and when they do they will either try to escape from their confinement searching for new territory to explore or, depending on the size of the area they are contained in and the amount of chickens in that space, they will start picking on each other.Boredom is often the countdown to trouble or at least a grudging discontent. I wouldn't want that for humans or chickens so I keep my chickens entertained.Chicken Entertainment

The Chicken Channel Image credit

So how does one entertain chickens? Do you get them Netflix in their coop playing The Chicken Channel 24/7? Do you ask them to go chicken dancing or just play chicken. No, you give them something to do.They say the grass is greener on the other side of the fence and in the case of a permanent chicken run, that's often literally true. Personally, I've always believed grass is greener where you water it, but that's another story.

For chickens, the grass is literally greener on the other side of the fence.

Make no mistake, I do contain them, to protect them from predators, using something my grandfather didn't have, electric poultry netting. 150 feet of poultry netting weights about 12 pounds, making it easy to move to new locations throughout the garden.The netting keeps them protected and protects my vegetables from being destroyed by the chickens, while allowing me to move the chickens often enough that they don't build up too much manure in the soil.Having them scratching away so close to my growing garden with just a 4 foot net between them and potentially devastating my garden, it's critical that they never get bored.By controlling the duration the chickens remain on any one spot, they will fertilizer the soil with the right amount of nutrients, find and destroy pests, remove weeds and eat weed seeds deep enough in the soil to be capable of germinating. They need to express these behaviors and get bored out-of-their-minds if they can't.Moving them to "new ground" to explore is all the entertainment a chicken needs and moving them often, turns the problem of nutrient build up into the solution of balanced soil fertility.Once I move them to a new spot, I plant behind them in the area they were just moved from. The area is perfectly prepared and ready to plant or sow.Because chickens don't weigh much, they don't compact the soil and their scratching and digging creates the perfect soil structure for a garden.What if your space is small?I realize you may have a small yard and can't be moving chickens everyday. Keeping them in a permanent, fenced chicken coop may be your only option. Here's how to provide for your chickens needs without overfertilizing the soil.Last year, we had an area close to the house that was overrun by buttercup and canary grass. Buttercup grows a thick mat of foliage that's difficult to get rid of once established and nearly impossible to plant a vegetable garden in. It's hard to dig out but not nearly as hard as the canary grass growing there as well.Being so close to the house and receiving full sun all day, it was a perfect location for growing vegetables. No problem. Chickens to the rescue.