I’ve just opened the fence to let the chickens in to one of the chicken forage yards. There are three fenced yards next to the chicken run, one has the beginnings of a citrus orchard and grass for grazing, but the other two I have been using to experiment with chicken forage crops. My first Winter crops have been rewarding; particularly the linseed (flaxseed) and wheat. Fenugreek hasn’t done well with any of my sowings over a full year now, and the mustard I sowed there was also a fizzer this season, although it has done very well in other spots.
Growing chicken forage
The plan with the chicken forage areas is to alternate opening yards to the chickens, so they’ve been turning over the yard that had amaranths and other summer crops (and actually cleaning up a lot of the onion grass weed that takes over here). I’ve now closed that and sown it with some test warm crops (sunflowers, sweetcorn, chia, millet), and let them next door. It’s obvious already that the more yards the better, as they take a few months to mature, while the chickens have a yard cleaned and scratched in a month.
They certainly don’t rush in and destroy the lot in a day, so hopefully they will get a week or so stripping grain, then a few more weeks on weeds and insects. It’s time effective too, better than me having to cut, thresh and feed grain. I should add that the chickens also have a home yard, which is quite big and with secure high fencing, and that contains the chicken house, so there’s three lots of fencing. They keep the home yard, which is under big trees, stripped bare of foliage.
Linseed (which is the same species as flax) is as easy as wheat to grow over the Winter here, and both are fairly quick crops. After a disappointing trail last Winter when I had to sow too late, I will sow it again next Autumn, this time even earlier while there is still good soil moisture.
With chickens as with us, the more varied the diet the better, so mixing an oilseed with a starchy cereal makes sense. I sowed in separate areas, but the two could probably be mixed as they both grow tall and thin here. I just used a little seed from a health food packet of linseed, and the wheat was from a 5 kg bag for chicken feed (already husked, which is unnecessary, but it was what I could buy easily and does the trick as well as rough wheat).
It’s handy to sow and grow these chicken forage crops where the chickens can have the entertainment of seeking them out and eating them, but as space by the coop is limited, I am also planting trial plots in other places. Many of these, like wheat, sunflowers, chia and lablab beans are also handy cover crops, useful for starting new beds. These are usually pretty roughly dug over and freshly fertilized and limed, and the cover crops make good pioneer plants, growing quickly, beginning the improvement of the soil, tolerating the rough start, and suppressing the first crop of weeds. With them it’s fairly easy to harvest and cart the seed heads to the chicken pen. Hopefully one day I’ll have enough beds dug to be able to pull weekly feeds through the year.