Chooks and wicking bed.

skipd · **Posted:** Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:05 pm

Hi Yall,
I want to relocate my chook run as I have them under my Manchurian Pear tree and they are digging it up to much, I have had to put oldcarpet down to stop them excavating it ccompletely.
With my new found discovery of wicking beds I was thinking of trying to incorporate a chook run with wicking beds in some sort of tractor rotation system.
Firstly has anyone tried a similar thing and if not would the chickens be to destructive for the wicking beds / layering?
I have 13 railway sleepers to possably use for wicking beds.
Any feed back would be greatly appreciated.

Simo · **Posted:** Sun Jul 03, 2011 7:32 pm

Not impossible to do. You would have to make a very light chook tractor that you could lift up onto each raised wicking bed as you did a rotation, or you could build subterainian wicking beds (see my thread) so that the top of them is at ground level so you can wheel the chook tractor on top of each bed easily as you rotate the chooks.

earthbound · **Posted:** Sun Jul 03, 2011 8:46 pm

Don't see why it wouldn't be possible.. There is a rather ritzy set up I have seen which sits ontop of a corrugated iron raised garden bed.

skipd · **Posted:** Sun Jul 03, 2011 9:55 pm

I was thinking of a permanent roost and surounded partly by GB but the roost moving over GB would stop a build up of poo and would be more space efficient which is important as Backyard has only so much space for optimum sun position.
Maybe rails mounted to top of railway sleepers.My existing coup could have a couple of wheels attatched to bottem quite easily.
Hm out with pad and pen.
Thanks for input and ideas. :wave:

Simo · **Posted:** Mon Jul 04, 2011 2:26 pm

That chook house looks pretty heavy, not sure I would want to move it to each bed. You could leave the chook house in place and build the wicking gardens around it. If each wicking bed is fenced individually(a lot of work) you could selectively open a small chook door into each bed as you want the chooks to go to work digging, weeding an fertilising and rotate them through by shutting one door and opening the next. Most of the poo would still end up in the chook house form their nocturnal bowel offerings but you could just shovel this to the beds where the heavy feeding plants have just been. The chooks wll be fine in wicking beds, the only tend to dick down about 15 cm in my experince. The design below is not as simple or as good as Linda Woodrow's mandela system design, but it will take up less space if room is tight.

Good book if you have not already read it http://www.tropicalpermaculture.com/per ... arden.html

Burnsy · **Posted:** Thu Jul 07, 2011 1:23 pm

I would not trust my chooks in my beds unless there was nothing in there I wanted and it was ready for a complete cleanout and replant (I never do this however and just infill plant). I only have three chooks but they would destroy a bed in 5 minutes, destructive they are.

skipd · **Posted:** Mon Jul 11, 2011 1:36 am

Hi Simo,
Thats a similar design to what I had drawn up, I thought to have a permanent run to 3 sides of coup, leaving the rear accesable for eggs. The run would have little gates to each bed.
I was thinking of having permanent posts around the beds and chicken wire that I would move from bed to bed as needed.
Burnsy, I hear you on the destructive digging of chooks, I have 3 also, they are pretty young, being laying for about 6 months now. The dig heaps more than the old ones I got before.
I guess if I start with a temporary pen over wicking beds I can abandon the idea if they cane it to much.

Peasants · **Posted:** Tue Jul 12, 2011 11:02 am

You could try out (without too much effort) the 'wagon wheel' covers like we have. We just open up the cover of which ever bed is fallow so the chooks can go in and scratch around. You wouldn't get that same build up of chook poo like you would if they roost, but we just collect that from a piece of tin under the roost and add it to which ever bed we let the chooks into, plus all the scraps etc. The chooks easily (!) jump up to get in the bed.
This would be fairly minimal work to try out the idea, then you could go to a more involved system as you see the benefits and disadvantages!
We have some photos on our garden thread if you are interested...

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