Cow manure fertiliser
 

"Jaques d'Altrades" wrote in message
...
The message
from "Franz Heymann" contains these
words:

If you had meant to say ".....chicken house situated in a compound
bounded
by a wire-netting fence, I would have understood you.

No. That qualifies, but often, the run is attached to one or two sides
of the henhouse to allow forays into the house for egg-collecting
without having to enter the run first.

Viz:
____________ - - - - - - - - - - - - -
| | :
| | :
| / :
| | :
| __________| :
\ - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Though usually such an arrangement has external access to the nest boxes.

Ah, now I get it.

Franz

Cow manure fertiliser
 

On Thu, 02 Oct 2003 15:42:46 +0200, martin wrote:
Anybody who has ever kept free range chickens will know that after a
while nothing grows in the chicken run except AFAIR nettles.

How do people think fruit trees would put up with being inside a
chicken run? I'm trying to think of the ways to make the best use of
the land we've got and one option is to overlay the fruit tree area
and the chickens.

--
The Flying Hamster http://www.korenwolf.net/
Of chess it has been said that life is not long enough for it, but that is
the fault of life, not chess. -- Irving Chernev

Cow manure fertiliser
 

The message t
from The Flying Hamster contains
these words:

On Thu, 02 Oct 2003 15:42:46 +0200, martin wrote:
Anybody who has ever kept free range chickens will know that after a
while nothing grows in the chicken run except AFAIR nettles.

How do people think fruit trees would put up with being inside a
chicken run? I'm trying to think of the ways to make the best use of
the land we've got and one option is to overlay the fruit tree area
and the chickens.

Chickens do a lot of scratching and dustbathing in bare earth runs.
Dustbaths make a hole up to 6" deep and a foot wide. That would uncover
and dry out shallow roots of blackcurrants gooseberries and raspberries
(anyway hens will jump high enough to get the fruit). Fruit trees like
plums damsons and cherries tend to sucker from roots which have been
damaged.

You might look up deep-litter pens, where the floor of the run is
covered with a layer of straw (at least a foot thick iirc, and the
bottom of the run needs walls to contain it). Lady Something used to
promote that post-war but afaik it went out of fashion, possibly because
it encouraged rats around the henhouse.

Janet.

Cow manure fertiliser
 

The message t
from The Flying Hamster contains
these words:

How do people think fruit trees would put up with being inside a
chicken run? I'm trying to think of the ways to make the best use of
the land we've got and one option is to overlay the fruit tree area
and the chickens.

My grandmother had an apple tree in one of her chicken runs, and it
lasted from the end of the war to around 1958 or so, so I wouldn't worry
about it. The apples were always pretty good - if you got to them before
they fell.

--
Rusty Hinge
horrid·squeak&zetnet·co·uk
http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/tqt.htm