Here at La Tierra Farm we have chickens. People will often ask “besides eggs and meat why do you have so many chickens? What are they good for?” That’s a very good question with lots of very good answers. Chickens are mini rototillers, to find out how well they work just let them out into the wife’s flower bed and she will tell you. Chicken will tear right into the ground uprooting plants, rocks, or anything they can move looking for grubs, insects, seeds, and little rocks. Given enough time they will clean out a spot making it prime for planting. After harvesting I let the chickens into the garden and they go through it like the little raptors that they are, eating and pooping their way like nobodies business.
Three Month Old Chicks
Chickens are little omnivores and will make a quick meal of any unsuspecting critter that crossed the pasture. They make quick work of insects, mice and snakes. The chickens are better mousers than our farm cats. Cats have a tendency to play with the mice they catch. Chickens will grab the mouse and take it down whole. Chickens also help in the kitchen, most of the green kitchen waste ends up in the chicken run where they make quick work of it. They share the kitchen waste with the worms in the worm bin and when we get enough worms they have lunch with their chicken buddies.
The Chicken Run
The chickens even have an arrangement with the crows and ravens. It started out innocent enough when one day I was collecting eggs and got sidetracked leaving the eggs out by the chicken coop. The crows though they were for them and took them, after that they would come by periodically looking for eggs. But one day a large hawk showed up and guess what. The crows chased it away. So now anytime I have a cracked or broken egg I place it on the compost pile and it disappears. I can’t guarantee it’s the crows but they always chase the hawks away.
White Brahma Rooster
Besides eggs and meat the best thing about the chickens is their poop. I get wood chips, which I shred myself, and put them in the chicken house. After a short time (~ a month) I clean out the chicken house wood chips and poop and start a compost pile. Did you know that a single chicken will produce about 11 pounds of manure a month, so if you have 50 chickens you get about 2 wheel barrels of manure and chips per month. Of course the chickens are in the field half the time so I only get part of the poop, but that’s still a lot of poop. The compost, of course, goes into the garden. So when they ask “what are they good for?” the answer is “lots”
White Brahma - Australorp Rooster