12 Comments

Anyone else raising chickens on one acre or less? What's your experience like?

Expand full comment

I love hens, my grandfather kept them on his smallholding when I was a child. I would love to have some but it's not practical when you live a mile away from your plot of land. I do buy a big tub of pelletted chicken manure, and spread some on my potatoes this afternoon in fact. Chicken manure is excellent stuff.

Expand full comment

Great idea on the potatoes! Hens are quite lovable creatures.

Expand full comment

I love the discussion that happened among them before they decided to go down the drawbridge.

Expand full comment

Right? Chickens are so entertaining.

Expand full comment

That looks amazing.

Thanks for all the details.

Do you also find that your chickens help with the tick population where you are? Or are you urban enough that you don’t have a lot of ticks?

Expand full comment

Great question: We have a lot of opossums, and they eat hordes of ticks, so that might keep the population down. I haven't seen any ticks at all in our garden, but I do get them frequently in the woods further out of town.

Expand full comment

As Lisa pointed out we have made some changes to the chick-shaw. We covered the egg window and even reinforced all of the plastic roofing material by adding more screws. if something gets in there it will have to be very large, very strong, and very determined (I don't think I could get in bare handed). Fortunately, being in an urban environment we don't have to worry about big predators.

Expand full comment

Snakes? Rat snakes are a culprit here

Expand full comment

We've only seen the harmless garden snakes and the Dekay's brown snake. I don't think they could get up to the chickshaw proper, which is elevated above the wheels.

Expand full comment

Dekay's are so cute! We have rat snakes, which are GREAT as rodent control (and non-venomous), but they are climbers. There's a whole group of Facebook called "Rat Snakes in Predicaments." Still, I like the idea of a chicksaw when we do get chickens. I mean, we live on Chickasaw Run!

Expand full comment

Ha, ha, it's your destiny! Just don't cut the hole for the egg door per the specs. Also, that flimsy "kickstand" is a joke. We prop it with a bucket.

Expand full comment