Every Purpose Under Heaven

Although I haven't posted the information specifically on the day, there have only been five mornings of ice cracking so far this year and the last few mornings have been amazingly warm! I have done the final harvest of the year, though. I am officially "all gardened out" for 2012. With the garden being officially done, the chickens get moved. I have the diagram in my book, "Simply Abundant" but it is well worth the explanation here at the blog. What I did and I truly believe this was by the inspiration of G-d, I designed a rather large fenced area 100' X 50', with a large gap right in the middle of one of the 100' sides. I chose the west side, but there's no real significance to the direction, it was just for convenience with the lay out of the rest of the place. the fence itself is 6' tall. I then placed my chicken house in the middle of that gap with the front in the line of the fence, but a gap on each side. I made gates that swung from the fence post to the chicken house on both sides. Now, the official area 100' X 50' was completely enclosed and basically critter tight. I then ran a fence down the middle with a portable panel near the chicken house door. My chickens have a "courtyard" that is 50' X 50' which is 2500 square feet for about three dozen chickens. Plenty of room for free ranging . . . The other half serves as my garden and I assure you 2500 square feet of garden produces lots and lots of veggies. The truly ingenious part of this entire plan is, every fall, I move the portable panel to the other side of the door and the chickens feast on all the garden greens and stems that are left, corn stalks, etc. and last year's chicken yard is already pecked and fertilized for next year's garden. I don't have to haul chicken litter, it's wonderful! I do have some other chickens that just range the place and eat ticks are bugs that have their house elsewhere, but these chickens in the courtyard are the cream of the crop for heavy meat breeds and decent egg production, so it truly is a complete deal here at this chicken garden spot. The young produced out of this flock, although may not be pure breeds, are all good meaty chickens and lay nice brown eggs. Two to three roosters is all I need to cover that size flock, and there are health and safety reasons to keep the rooster population at a minimum, so my freezer holds the rest. Except for milk and cheese, the majority of the food for the homestead comes from that 100' X 50' space.