How to Create a Chicken Garden Coop for a Friendly and Healthy Backyard
You are going to love the idea of a chicken garden. If you have one of these:
❏ Little children.
❏ A fondness for fluffy animals.
❏ A taste for fresh eggs.
❏ Extra space in your backyard.
❏ A gardening hobby.
Children love to play with fluffy animals. Adults find a sense of peace and comfort in the company of nature. As for the chickens, they don’t mind a little human interruption now and then.
Humans are domesticating chickens for more than 5,400 years. There are hardly any wild species of chicken left today.
If two things don’t go hand in hand in nature, it is chicken and plants. If you leave a bunch of chickens in a planted area, the green will disappear. However, you, too, can have a heavenly chicken patch with a little help.
We are sharing with you some great tips from gardening experts and long-time farmers on “how to create a chicken garden.” With these simple methods, you can learn yourself and also teach your kids how to create a chicken garden coop for a friendly and healthy backyard
1. Choose your sunny patch:
If you do not own a chicken patch already, you need to decide where you want to raise your chickens. The ideal places are backyards, lawns, and private farms.
Chickens like to roam around freely. It is best to have at least 8–10 square feet of land for the birds to peck and cluck all day comfortably.
Section the area where you want to tend to your chickens. Chickens need a healthy distribution of den, mudding and scratching patches, perches, and egging space in the garden. You can plant vegetables and rare chickens at the same time in your garden.
However, you are going to have proper sectioning to protect your harvest. Even if your chicken seems uninterested in a plant today, it will start pecking at it anytime without warning. Instead of guessing the unpredictable preferences of chickens, you are better off securing your plants with barriers.
2. Select your coop theme:
The most exciting part of planning for a chicken garden is deciding your theme. You can have a vegetable garden that is open for chicken after harvest. You can have little herb patch for your chickens, or you can have tall trees with embedded garden plots.
Chickens are considered great garden helpers. They will clean out unwanted worms and weed from your garden floor. However, you will need to practice some precaution to shelter your plants from beak attacks. Prepare secure plant hedges for in the garden.
To give your garden an elegant look, introduce gravel paths. These gravel paths are easy to clean and excellent for chicken digestion. You can also choose color themes based on the types of plants and garden ornaments you want to install.
3. Paint the chicken barn:
Now it is time to select a suitable barn for your chicken. No matter how many chickens like to roam around, they can’t survive without a proper barn. Decide a place for the barn in the garden beforehand. Be mindful that you prepare a coop with a 2–3 square feet space per chicken.
Get creative and paint your coop in garden theme colors. Don’t forget to install perching births and plenty of hey inside the coop. Most henhouses have built-in feeding panels and water containers.
If you are building your own, add a roasting platform so your roosters can crow all the time. You can also add a detachable roof, for an easy cleanup routine.
4. Toxic Plants and Flowers:
Suppose you are wondering that your current plants will poison your chicken. There is some good news for you. Most toxic plants taste fishy to chicken. They are unlikely to munch at them. However, you are better off removing deadly plants altogether from your garden.
The list of toxic plants for chicken is pretty extensive; most ornamental and flowering plants are harmful to poultry. Be extra careful, and don’t let your chicken near pesticides or chemical fertilizers as it can cause medical complications in poultry.
5. Chicken-friendly pots:
The easiest way to rule out toxic plants is to make a query about the specie that you have. Although choosing chicken friendly plants is much easier than screening for harmful plants altogether. Here is a list of great plants that are beneficial for your chickens, you can also add them in the chicken feed for a nutritional feed.
A) Herbs:
Rosemary, thyme, hyssop, and blue corn-flowers are some of the best herbs for chicken.
B) Ginger and Garlic:
Chicken love to peck at freshly sprouted ginger and garlic shoots.
C) Spinach and greens:
These are best feed additives for young chicks in the winter season.
D) Watermelon:
Crush watermelon seeds are a healthy supplement for chicken feed.
6. The Egging Area:
For a natural egg harvest, you can allow your laying hens to roam freely in small bushes and haystacks in the garden. Many farmers train their hens to lay eggs inside the coop for sewing season. It is up to you to set up an egging area inside the coop or the garden.
If you have children or grandchildren, you will love freshly hatched chicks running all around your garden. It takes 21 days for a chick to hatch; during this period, the sewing mother becomes finicky to protect her eggs.
You need to make arrangements in your garden to receive these young chicks. Smooth out the sharp metal edges of garden barriers. Remove any unstable heavy garden tools, add more hay in the chicken coops to keep the newborn chicks warm.
7. The Digging Quarters:
All chickens love to dig. As soon as you plow through your chicken garden to plant some trees, the chicken will attack the soft mud in search of worms. More often than usual, it is not the plants that the chickens are after; it is freshly dug dirt filled with small insects.
It is better to secure the area around the plants with unwanted materials like cider woodchips or protect it with metallic frames or cement hedges. You can also choose tall trees and potted plants for chicken-proofing.
Don’t think about growing grass in your chicken garden; It will not withstand the scratching. Chickens need frequent mud-baths to regulate oil glands and ward off parasites. Incorporate some dirt and muddy area in your garden where chickens can dig and scratch as much as they want.
8. Safety First:
Humans are not the only creature who loves chicken. In an open space, there is a danger of predators lurking for chicken from the sky and the wild suburban areas. To fend off coyotes and wolves, secure your chicken garden with metal ledges.
Some large birds of prey like bald eagles and hawks hunt chickens. The younger chicks are more susceptible to this danger more than grown roosters and hens.
Plants shady trees in your garden and only allow chickens to roam about under your supervision. Watchdogs are also a great way to secure the chicks in their junior years.
9. Garden Borders:
A chicken is fascinating, but it cannot distinguish between your garden area and his territory. So, you are better off building a small wall that would add to the aesthetic, but it is a fabulous perching place.
There is nothing racist about the chicken garden wall. It is essential to keep your chickens from harm’s way. You can add specialty soils and herbal supplements to the garden bed to direct your chickens to a favorite digging spot.
10. Perching Quarters:
Chickens cannot fly, but their leaps of faith are higher than any human. You can find the chicken on the roof of the barn, on the garden walls, and even on low tree branches. When chickens are not pecking or clucking, they are perching.
They also love to sunbath in the summers to get rid of germs and parasites. Your chickens would be very excited if you can add perching-friendly garden ornaments like birdbaths, benches, and hanging chicken feeds.
Conclusion:
These were some of the best methods to learn about how to create a chicken garden coop for a friendly and healthy back yard. These methods are from experts who swear by them and have used them for generations in their backyards. A chicken garden is better than a muddy chicken coop and an empty plant patch. It is a livelier version of the yard. Once you have the right knowledge, it is not very difficult to maintain.
Chickens are mostly self-cleaning animals. However, it is crucial to keep the garden clean from artificial chemicals and plastic pollution. Small objects like caps and straws can get lodges into chicken throats and kill them. Despite all the precautions and herbal supplements, visit a veterinarian with regular intervals to maintain good poultry health all around the year.
You can enjoy a carefree day in your chicken garden with a book surrounded by your furry friends. Get your kids to help out with the garden chores and play with your grandchild while tending to the new chicks. Studies show that pets reduce stress in adults and make children more responsible.