Gardening with chickens-part II

I've been spending a lot of time in the garden catching up on all the things that didn't get done while we were focusing all our time and energy getting the old house sold.  And the chickens are helping me.

Here are my girls helping to clear the weeds from the garden. They, hopefully, are also eating up the chiggers as well.  The garden, particularly the red raspberry patch, was the worst place for getting bitten by chiggers.


I planted garlic and shallots today. The hard part will be keeping the chickens from digging them up.

Before I let the chickens into the garden space I fenced off the blueberry and gooseberry bushes.  I planted the garlic and shallots in front of the gooseberries and was able to move the fence around the garlic as well.  Although, after I put the straw bedding on the garlic the chickens came over and were trying to figure out how to get at the straw to start scratching around.

In other poultry news, our one remaining Mottled Java is moulting and looks so pathetic.

But all our old laying hens have a date with the butcher soon, along with our three remaining turkeys.

We had an owl problem and lost a bunch of turkeys and sold our breeders before they were eaten as well.  I hope to just have the nine new pullets and the three goats for the winter. And a busy winter it should be.  We are getting estimates on building a barn and fencing in the pastures.  Lots more to write about!