So ya decided to keep some chickens eh? Congratulations on inheriting a life with this wonderful multipurpose animal.
Multipurpose Chickens?
Yep! If you have decided to look at your chickens as pets that is perfectly fine. But, did you know that there are more things a chicken is capable of?
But they are chickens, what could they possibly be capable of?
Well, that is the exact concept I will be discussing. We all know that chickens give us eggs to eat, voices to hear throughout the day, a big mess from kicking their bedding around, and lots of poop that inevitably gets everywhere.
But, what else are they capable of?
Chickens are amazing in so many ways, but they also have many instinctual behaviors that not only makes them happy, but can help you out around the garden and homestead as well.
Here are three ways you can utilize your chickens:
Using Them for Pest Control
You’re darn right! One of the best pest hunters and eaters are chickens. Chickens have this amazing ability to see things. Their eyesight is so powerful that they can see things crawling around that humans would never be able to. There are different reasons why a chicken’s eye site is so amazing. Chickens have what is called an ultra-violet cone. This gives them the ability to see a lot more colors than we can.
These UV cones enable them to spot bugs easily and many other sources of food and nutrition.
They also have a powerful, built-in motion detection cone.
This cone does exactly what it says, detects motion, but on a much more powerful level than your typical motion detecting lights at home. The fact that chickens’ eyes are located on the side of their dinosaur heads, enables them to have a 300 degree field of vision.
To put things into perspective, humans only have 180 degree field of vision.
These chicken super powers not only makes them excellent at finding much needed protein, but saves us, as gardeners, a lot of headache. Do you like finding damaged plants from pests that you worked so hard to plant? Do you like extra bugs flying around in your face and into your home? Yah, me either.
Your chickens will find bugs regardless of what you do, but you can increase the amount they eat by giving them a larger space to roam in during the day. So, if it is possible, let them out of that coop every now and again and let them stretch those chicken legs a bit and get some much needed protein.
One word of caution, they will eat your plants at the same time.
So if you decide to let them roam freely, you might want to give your plants a little extra security. So think twice about calling your Orkin guy or girl to spray all that poisonous nonsense that will not only kill the bugs you decided not to like, but will also kill off the beneficial ones.
Cheers to you!
For finally letting your little allies do a little work for you. They will thank you for not only filling their little bird tummy’s, but their little bird brains as well.
Using Chickens for Making Compost
If you enjoy gardening, whether it be vegetables or pretty flowers. What is one of the most important things we need and buy to be able to grow those plants? COMPOST. We all use it. We all love it, but do we all like paying for it? I know I don’t. Especially because I use so much of it, so often. But, when I find a good organic compost and see amazing results in the garden after using it, I know that it is a necessity for the health of my garden.
So, what if I told you that you can easily make your own compost just by letting your chickens do what comes naturally to them?
That is, scratching and pooping. Yah, but how will scratching and pooping possibly turn into compost? Very simply, actually. Basically, you could make a pile of carbon material. This could include, but not limited to leaves, straw, wood chips, or any other brown material. The chickens will be chickens and will scratch and poop in the pile.
Chicken poop is a very rich source of nitrogen.
The combination of carbon, nitrogen, and mixing the material is all that is needed to make compost in simple terms. Now, do not expect to go out, dump a pile of wood chips in front of your flock, and wake up the next morning to a fresh pile of compost. Making your own compost is very easy, but there are a few extra steps needed for it to turn into compost.
If you are not in a hurry though, this material will eventually turn into compost without you doing anything else, but it will take some time.
This is what I like to call, lazy compost, which can take up to a year or more to actually turn into compost.
If you are interested in a faster way to make compost, read our article on our quick method to compost. Don’t forget about the bedding you are using in the coop makes a great carbon input for your next attempt at compost. Now, go give yourself a swift smack on the ass, for not using chickens sooner, to whip up some lovely rich compost you can use to give back to the earth.
Meat for the Freezer
That’s right y’all! It may not be your cup of tea, but we use our chickens in every way that we can on our homestead. To us this means, providing our chickens with the best life possible. We achieve this by feeding them a nutritious organic diet, letting them free range the way chickens were meant to, allowing them to exercise their natural instinctual behaviors, and giving them 7 flirty winks daily. That’s right when you walk by your flock give ’em a big flirty wink. They will love you for making them blush.
Just don’t get weird by smacking their ass.
Chickens don’t like that and don’t ask me how I know that! So, after providing a great life for our chickens and their egg production starts to decline, we will thank them for a wonderful friendship and feed our family with them. Now keep in mind, before we decide to bring chickens into our working homestead, we have a firm understanding that they are here to work with us, provide eggs for us, assist us in the production of compost, help control garden pests, and eventually provide us with meat to feed our family.
That is it in an eggshell folks. Hahaha get it!! Instead of nutshell…nevermind!
Some cool ways, you too, can not only enjoy your chicken friends, but have them give you a little something in return. So, next time you are out doing chicken chores, take a creative look around at some changes you can make to give your chickens a more meaningful life while also minimizing some of your daily chicken chores.
Until next time…
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