Keep Chickens!: Tending Small Flocks in Cities, Suburbs and Other Small Spaces Read Online Free PDF

themselves in the garden. Instead of letting them out for hours at a time, I let them romp freely for about a half hour before dusk. With a limited amount of time, the Girls can crush only so much in the garden. I don’t take any chances with delicate plants like bleeding heart and maidenhair ferns and delicious greens like baby lettuce. I have a large yellow push broom and a wide orange rake that, happily for me, seem to strike fear in the hearts of the Girls, even when the tools are simply propped against a fence. I place the broom and rake across beds that are off limits. The hens, certain that these tools are instruments of chicken torture, tend to steer clear.
    Bird Word
    Make sure delicate garden plants are protected from free-ranging chickens.
    To minimize their trampling, let hens out into your yard for only an hour before dark.
    As a second part of the plan, I let the Girls out only at dusk. Part of the reason they dig holes so frenetically is to cool themselves; the earth below the sun-warmed topsoil is cool and soothing. At sundown, they aren’t as likely to dig holes for their cooling comfort, because the warmest part of the day is already gone.
    I allow the Girls long, leisurely hours in the yard when I’m gardening. This way, if I catch them digging near ferns or flowers unguarded by Bad Broom and Rake of Death, I can promptly shoo them away. Anyway, hanging out in the garden with my chickens is fun for me and for them. The Girls like to think they are helping me if they are directly underfoot. If I’m turning soil in spring, they crowd around like kids at an ice cream counter, waiting for me to turn up fresh, juicy worms. When I prune or trim plants and shrubs, the Girls like to stand by the pile and taste the tossed clippings. They’ll sneak up behind me, grab a twig from the debris, and run off with it as if hoarding valuable treasure.
    More recently, my spouse came up with a great idea for allowing the Girls out in the yard without close supervision: a temporary fence. Think “baby gate” for chickens. It is made of heavy-duty netting that is 3 feet (90 cm) high and spooled like a bolt of fabric. One end is secured to a post near the fence in my yard, and the other end is stapled to a sturdy wood dowel that extends about 8 inches (20 cm) below the bottom of the net. I’ve sunk a PVC pipe in the ground at a point across the yard from the fence post. Before letting the Girls out of their coop, I roll the net across the yard and drop the end of the dowel into the open mouth of the PVC pipe. This divides my garden into two sections — mine and the hens’. The system is somewhat primitive, but it effectively seals off half of the yard from my cheerfully marauding chickens. You could also construct fencing with wooden dowels at either end and sink PVC pipes in several strategic locations so that you could fence off different portions of the yard.
    The Girls maintain total rule on the narrower front portion of the temporarily fenced area just outside their coop. The rest of the yard belongs to me. In the front section, I coincidentally had plants that were resilient to heavy hen feet: established rhododendron, azalea, arborvitae, camellia, raspberry, mint, and other evergreen, woody shrubs (miniature conifers look adorable with chickens mingled among them). None of these plants has ever sustained much wear and tear during the chickens’ pleasant pillaging. The larger back section behind the net fencing has all my delicate plants, including the ferns, peonies, and vegetables.
    Poultry Tribune, circa 1940.
Art, Pets & Entertainment
    Yet another benefit of having a garden flock of chickens is being able to enjoy their beauty. That’s right, their beauty . Considering the great variety of plumage colors, patterns, and styles, I think chickens are the most beautiful birds in the fowl world.
    This temporary, lightweight, portable chicken fence can be made for a minimal cost with items purchased at a local