Garden design - don't eat eggs - should I include chickens anyway?

Discussion in 'Planting, growing, nurturing Plants' started by futurefarmer, Aug 16, 2017.

  1. futurefarmer

    futurefarmer Junior Member

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    We've finally moved into our new place and we are currently trying to design our vege garden zone around the house. Pretty much a clean slate at the moment, with about 11m x 15m of gently sloping sunny garden space to utilise.

    Read a lot of good stuff about the usefulness of chooks in a home garden system...for assisting with the composting process, bed prep, bug control, weed seed removal etc.

    We're not big meat/egg eaters though (we eat mostly veg). In light of this, would anyone care to share their thoughts on whether chooks would still be worth having? Without the big attraction of fresh organic eggs to eat...are they still worth the trouble do you think??
     
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  2. songbird

    songbird Senior Member

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    if you have enough space for them they do work well for
    clearing up garden spaces to prep them for planting.

    i don't have any chickens myself, i keep worms instead, worms
    will compost anything organic, but not as quickly as what a
    chicken would do when they pick apart most things...

    i am into keeping my gardens as simply as possible and with
    as little expense as possible. so to me having chickens would
    be quite an investment in having to set up fences and a roost
    for them, food and water sources, etc. and then with all the
    animals we have around here who'd like to eat them it would be
    a constant challenge to keep them alive.

    the worms i keep in the house in buckets.
     
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  3. Bryant RedHawk

    Bryant RedHawk Junior Member

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    Even if you don't eat eggs the chooks are very much worth while having. Even though you don't eat eggs, there are lots of folks who would probably pay a fair price for the eggs your chooks produce. They will process a lot of compost, eat garden eating bugs, provide lots of high nitrogen fertilizer and their activities will attract worms to your soil through the higher nitrogen feeding the soil bacteria. If you use straw for the bedding in the coop, then weekly rake it out into the yard area, they will scratch through it every day, mixing it up and that will end up as very nice compost that you can harvest twice a year for your gardens.
     
  4. Pol Bishop

    Pol Bishop New Member

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    I agree with Bryant on this one. You can just sell the eggs to neighbours who like to eat real eggs and not those they sell at super markets. You'll actually earn money to invest in your chickens. Chickens require care and resources, if all you need them is for compost, then worms are definitelly the better option.
     
  5. Colleenthurber

    Colleenthurber New Member

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    Can you sell the eggs? Lots of people would love access to healthy, local eggs. We use chickens for just about everything we can--we do eat the eggs and meat, but also they're super helpful for creating soil. We experimented with free-range at first and they burned out the range, it took years for us to recover the area. Now we do deep-bedding houses which have the advantage of containing all the soil created so that you can easily grab a bag or two to take to your garden as needed. I'll share a video that my husband made about the process, perhaps it'll be helpful!

     
  6. Cornonthecob

    Cornonthecob Junior Member

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    Chickens will do the vast majority of your work for you if you design well :)
     

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