Last night I tackled the teeny little hosta bed right behind the house, cleaning it out for the winter. This isn't even a 'bed' per se, it's more of a place to plunk plants up against the foundation so I don't have to weed whack right up to the concrete. The plants are used as a dust ruffle more or less.
The north side of the house is a harsh environment for the hostas I plopped in there, most of them are splits off of my favorites found elsewhere in the garden. The shade situation is perfect for the plants, but I often forget to water them under the eaves and most of our summer rainfall doesn't come from the north.
But the harshest abuse the unfortunate hostas suffer is the Girls. I thought I'd write a little more about life with chickens just in case anyone decides they'd like to add some poultry to their garden.
When there's still snow on the ground, the first place
that melts is right up against the house foundation and that's where the
Girls go to play in the dirt. They dig holes and wreak havoc on the
plants, exposing all the roots. And yet, I can't begrudge them the opportunity to get dirt
between their toes. I feel the same way after a long winter.
Our hens are free-range from the first frost of fall to June 1 when they are confined to their large pen so I can have my mulch in place for five seconds in the garden.
We've had chickens here for many years. I grew up with around fifty chickens on the farm every year; we raised them from chicks which Mom butchered in the fall for meat. Those chickens were Leghorns, a medium-sized white breed, very flighty and nervous.
Now I keep a small flock, rarely more than five hens at a time, and they are pets, only leaving the farm when they die of old age. Most of them are rescue chickens from 4H projects gone bad or someone tiring of taking care of them. Many of them have been other people's pets or were too old and tough for the stew pot, so they ended up here with us. They lay eggs randomly, mostly one or two a day, but enough for us.
Every year I debate how long I'll keep chickens; I know all of ours are getting up there in age. Winter is the hardest time, but with a heated dog water bowl and ample feed, they do just fine in the coop. On the coldest nights they have a heat lamp. The worst part is shoveling snow every day to get to them.
Visitors here often fantasize about having free-range chickens, thinking it would be an amazing thing to do, but if they aren't familiar with poultry, there are a few things they might not realize.
Gardening with Chickens Factoids
#1: Chickens scratch. It's what they do. I had a visitor ask me why I didn't buy a breed of chicken that didn't scratch. Huh, a chicken that doesn't scratch? I don't know of any. Couldn't they be trained to stop scratching? Can you train a fish to stop swimming? Nope, it's what they do. If you don't want things dug up, including your prized vegetables and petunias, don't get a chicken.
Below are pictures of the Girls in Action this afternoon, though it's hard to see, if you look closely, you can see leaves piling up behind them. They take two steps forward, and then scratch backwards, moving the mulch or ground cover off of an area and quickly check to see if something moves.
Flying leaves.........
See the leaves flying up in the air? Yup, they'll do the same thing with mulch. I have to go and unbury my hostas in the spring due to their exuberant work ethic. But they also prey on slugs, snails and all manner of insects, including woodticks, which helps me immensely.
#2: When they're done working over an area, all of the mulch will be in piles on the lawn. Sadly they won't return the favor and scratch the mulch back into the flower beds. Nope.
#3: When you put the mulch back, they will return to remove it again. (Immediately.) The same thing goes for any seedlings which will be scratched out (and possibly eaten, depending on what the plant is.)
#4: You will soon grow tired of the Mulch Moving/Plant Destruction Game and confine your pets to a large pen for the growing season where you will deliver your daily weeds to them on an hourly basis and they will turn the compost for you.
#5: When the first hard frost arrives, they will return to the gardens, remove all your mulch and search out slugs, grasshoppers, and wood ticks until June 1st rolls around again. If I had a pedometer on my chickens, I bet I'd be stunned to see the mileage; they are all over the property.
#6: Free-range chicken eggs are unbelievably tasty. The yolks are such a deep color of yellow, almost orange, in contrast to store bought. Our two big black hens lay eggs so large they do not fit into even a jumbo carton. Winter is usually a downtime for egg laying unless you have lights in the coop, I guess. I miss the eggs, but it's ok if they stop laying, too.
#7: Chickens provide fertilizer along with eggs. But much of the fertilizer they provide will be right on the same garden paths you walk on. Heads up, watch your step, chicken bombs abound. They're merely trying to keep you nimble, can't have a clumsy gardener stumbling around. And you can bet your visitors will not be happy to find their best shoes ruined, either.
#8: Roosters crow and drive the hens constantly. And some can become mean. I only keep Girls. Girls are nice and quiet and friendly and won't try to stick you with their leg spurs or attack you when your back is turned.
#9. Chickens are NOT for everyone. If you plant tomatoes in your garden, don't be angry when the plants don't produce strawberries.
(Case in point: I had one visitor tell
me his neighbor had recently purchased a flock of free-range chickens because he thought they looked cute in the garden. The man became enraged when the chickens started scratching in his expensive 'dyed-to-match his house siding mulch', scattering it out onto the lawn. After a week of chasing them around he went and got his .22
and killed every chicken he caught scratching in the wood chips. Eventually they were all dead. He told his neighbor he was going to replace those
stupid chickens with non-scratching chickens.
He'll have to find some chicken statues, because there is no such thing.
#10. Chickens are wonderful, but they're work. You will need to feed them a good quality laying mash, corn, scratch grains and table scraps, yes, they will eat just about anything, including meat!) and water. You will need to clean up after them, you will need to protect them from predators, namely raccoon, hawks, opossum, fox and weasels, and worst of all, dogs.
A note about dogs: they will kill your chickens in record time. Chickens run when they see a dog; a dog is by nature prey-driven and when prey runs, the dog chases. Sadly, a frenzy of killing will ensue. I'll
never forget the day the Girls were squawking frantically and I ran to
find two stray German Shepherds in the yard, one in the coop itself,
chasing terrified hens from perch to perch. Luckily some of the Girls flew up
onto the garage roof but one was already dead. I chased the dogs off
with a shovel and went and buried my poor hen.
I trained our late Shih Tzus not to harm the chickens. Hard to believe, but even a ten pound dog can kill a chicken quite easily. First I slowly walked Teddy, and later Pudding, on a short leash, allowing them to sniff the chickens from a distance, but when they showed signs of wanting to chase, I brought the leash up even shorter and sternly told them 'NO!'
This lesson had to be repeated at least a dozen times, each time with a little longer leash until the dogs got the idea. Once my dogs realized that the chickens were off-limits, they all peacefully coexisted, walking past each other without a second glance.
I do enjoy
the Girls; they're with me all day long in the garden and have amazing
vocalizations. They've often warned me of stray dogs or cats and the approach
of people with the sounds they make. When there's nothing to fear
their quiet clucking and chattering is very soothing to my soul.
Below, Ebony works on a small patch of interesting ground:
Do you see the blur that is her foot throwing the leaves out of the way?
I do worry about them, though, especially if we're not home. They are vulnerable to all the varmints I've listed and a few more I haven't. Chickens will put themselves to bed at dusk; once they know where their coop is, they will return there every night.
But the sad part is chickens are blind in the dark, so if say, a raccoon or opossum enters the coop at night, the chickens are defenseless. If we leave in the late afternoon, we try to lure the Girls in with a treat of a piece of bread or meat and lock up them up, but it usually won't work if it's broad daylight. We're always on tenterhooks when we're gone after dark since you never know what you'll find when you go to lock the coop.
A month ago I went out to lock the coop just as darkness was falling. The Girls were up on their roost, all seemed fine until I noticed the hanging feeder was swinging to and fro. I aimed my cellphone's flashlight into the coop and sure enough, trying his best to hide in the corner was a large opossum.
We'd accidentally locked up the coop a few years ago with an opossum inside. When I came out in the morning I was shocked by the sight of two dead hens and an ugly varmint lurking in a nesting box. Ugh, what a shame.
This time I yelled for Carl to come to the rescue. I've done some reading about opossums and apparently, they are woodtick vacuum cleaners. I guess they groom themselves obsessively like cats and can attract and destroy an amazing amount of ticks. For that reason, and that reason alone, I've declared a moratorium on the usual death sentence for being a chicken coop intruder. Carl went in the coop with a long stick and chased the opossum out. Surprisingly, they apparently have short memories, because two days later he/she was back again. Carl gave him a resounding whack on the back and off he scurried. He hasn't been back since.
Chickens are also smarter than people think, and if you want some fantastic aerobic exercise, try to catch one. They can run close to nine miles an hour (per a web search, I haven't actually clocked one) and know just when to zig when you zag. If all else fails, they can fly to a fairly high perch to avoid you, too, but their flights are short-lived. The best tactic for capture is to wait until after dark.
But never underestimate the power of a treat; our hens will come when I call them and are always looking for a tasty morsel. Sometimes you can persuade them to go in their coop if you're patient. Any fast moves on your part, though, and you've lost.
I guess that's about it for my experience with chickens over the years.
Winter's coming, they'd better get their work done soon!
(At least I'm not the only one.)
