29 December, 2017

Hainan: a chook perspective [guest post]

Hi! I'm Hainan the Leghorn, and I'll be taking you on a tour of the garden I live in today...

Garden late December 2017

The first picture there is me (aren't I pretty?) with my companion Honey Soy, an Isa Brown, in the background.

Here's a better one of Honey:
Garden late December 2017

We run around in a moveable chook 'tractor' which we scratch around in most of the day, connected to our coop/house by a series of tunnels:
November 2017

Our chook tractor is made without a bottom so we can dig up the soil. Our droppings combine with the straw and other clippings that are tossed in, and they fertilise the ground which can then be planted out with seedlings.

Here you can see the patches which have been planted out - the first one with corn and tomatoes, the second one with corn and pumpkin, and the third one waiting. We're not allowed into the planted out patches, which is really unfair! I love sitting on a plant and scratching it into submission while pecking at the leaves and destroying the plant! It's one of my favourite things to do when I escape!
Garden late December 2017

This bed, with the corn, cucumbers, and tomatoes, is the first bed that Honey and I were set to scratch out - look how well it's doing after around 6 weeks!
Garden late December 2017

More corn, and pumpkins. Although, as chooks, we're supposed to love pumpkin seeds, Mummy tossed us a whole heap of seeds and we didn't end up eating them! So they lay in the compost until our chook tractor moved on to the next bed, and then they sprouted. But Mummy is keeping them. (Maybe she shouldn't keep quite so many of them - one vine grows quite long!)
Garden late December 2017

And this is what a garden bed looks like after the chicken tractor is moved off:
Garden late December 2017

Lots of space for planting things!

At night we get locked up in the coop away from cats and foxes and other urban predators, and in the morning we lay eggs and make very noisy clucking sounds to let everyone know what we've done! It's a hard-knock life for a chook.

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