Raising Animals as Gardening Allies

Chickens, ducks, and rabbits can add a lot to a kitchen garden

Launch Gallery

When I go into the garden first thing in the aurora , fuzzy , yellow ducklings subspecies into view . Running around peep , they take a sharpness from the self-feeder , have a drink from the piddle dish . They horn in their bills into and investigate everything their funny eyes light up on . give their headlong charge across the garden , you would think they had but one day to experience all of life ’s miracles .

I love chickens , ducks , and rabbits . I bonk their chatter , their curio , the manner they toy , and their eagerness to make a home in the garden . Our 62 - foot by 166 - invertebrate foot suburban lot is place to several ducks and crybaby , plus a couple of rabbits . They are not pets . I wish to think of them as garden employee . We do n’t name them — they may be dinner . Though well taken precaution of , they are not coddled . To us they are but one more spell of the magnificent mechanism that is nature . Such animals , right manage , can become essential tools in the garden , earning their keep and making horticulture more efficient and merriment .

chicken , ducks , and lapin play a polar role in fertilize our garden . First , the fowl have innocent access code to our compost piles . As erstwhile dough , vegetable and fruit peelings , fallen fruit , and other thriftlessness is discarded , the rabbits and poultry eat much of it , then return it in the soma of manure . This considerably speeds up the composting of kitchen fighting . All of the animals ’ manure is used in some way to fertilize the garden . The watering tank that provides the duck’s egg a swim hole is also a ready to hand source of mild liquid plant food . Finally , honest-to-goodness stalk and cedar bedding make wonderful mulch , with some liberal fertilizer in the shape of poultry manure throw in .

This little Eden fare with some cost in time , patience , thought , and a little money . Animals must be fed , watered , house , and protected from piranha . I expend about 15 minutes a day filling feeders , washables and filling water behind , and roll up bollock . Every few weeks , I houseclean out the duck’s egg pond . And a few clock time a year , there are bigger job , like curry the running play , replacing the bedding , crop flight of steps feathering , and scrubbing the chicken coop . If you enjoy beast , however ( not to mention unused , constituent ball ) , it ’s worth the investment . And your garden will thrive .

Getting started

Urban and suburban nurseryman should insure first with local district department to find out what they can and can not raise . Codes vary wide regarding types and number of animate being permitted . Some municipality allow no animal at all . I also recommend investing in a handbook on call down these animate being . You ’ll learn a draw more than I can tell you here .

To be trusted you ’re getting hefty animals , corrupt bird , duckling , and youthful bunny rabbit only from a reliable dealer . wench and duckling are available as hatchlings from provender entrepot , which will sell in small quantities . There are mail - order seed too , but they have high minimums .

As for equipment , you ’ll need an incandescent bulb for keeping the chicks and duckling warm , a binful and tray feeders , and water boy . At first you ’ll need chick starter motor feed , and after that , an 80 - lb bag of triplex - obligation or general - function feed will take fear of six chickens for about a month if they are also feed with garden and kitchen scraps . you may build a henhouse for short or nothing using recycled lumber , but grease one’s palms the good wire fencing you may afford , to ensure that your brute do n’t get out or predators get in .

If you ’re concerned in rabbits only for their droppings , you may probably find bunny for free through feed stores , kennel , or a vet ’s office . On the other hired man , if you want to raise rabbits , a good pair of breeders will be more than $ 100 . They are worth the money , however , because they live longer and will have large , hefty litters . Buy your rabbits at two to three month old . reach your local extension service of process for sources .

You ’ll also need wire cages for housing coney . A hutch to hold up the cages and provide shelter from weather can be assembled cheaply from recycled woodwind , and you ’ll have to get a food bin and waterer . A 50 - pound bag of rabbit chow will feed two rabbit for about three months , if you add in garden and kitchen scraps .

Animal housing and other considerations

poulet demand shelter from rainfall and drafts , a moody place to lay eggs , a roost ( a stout 2- to 3 - inch - diameter branch or dowel pin ) , and at least 2 to 3 square base of floor space per bird . A fenced perimeter with fencing over the top keeps poultry in and predators out . Three hens are enough of a flock to process kitchen scraps , police for weeds and insects , and farm eggs . Roosters are noisy and are n’t needed for nut .

I opt Bantam breeds , which are a fifth part to a third as crowing as full - sizing chicken . bantam eat only 20 to 25 pounds of feed per class , they ’re much easier to treat than full - size of it chickens , and they do less terms if they escape into the garden . Avoid show breed , especially those with farsighted feathers , because in a garden surroundings they ’ll get muddy in a hurry .

Ducks are more broad of pelting , winding , and cold than chickens , but they still need protection , which leave them privateness for laying . Ducks are happier with a small pool for swim , playing , and union . I use a 4½-foot - diameter galvanized stock lacrimation army tank . I rigged an 8 - foot ramp from a long board with fleck ½-inch - grid hardware cloth stapled to the top for traction . Raising duckling is very similar to raising doll , except no roost is need .

After raising many kinds of ducks , I prefer Muscovies . They ’re calm , and since they do n’t quack , they ’re smooth , which form them ideal for urban scope . Muscovy are n’t the smashing layers , though . If you require duck eggs , prove Indian Runners .

coney are very hardy , but they do n’t like to get wet . I prefer to shelter each in a enceinte wire cage ( 30 column inch by 36 inches by 18 column inch ) in a hovel conveniently located above the compost hatful . A broad roof shelters the cony from the rainfall , and in wintertime I can unroll a plastic annulus around the cages to keep out wind and snow . I use three cages — one for the buck , one for the doe , and one for turn out the young ( called kits ) . If I were keep rabbits alone for their compost benefit , I ’d have one adult rabbit per John Milton Cage Jr. . Each cage needs a bird feeder and a waterer . The doe ’s batting cage also has a nesting loge where she keeps the untested warm until they ’re weaned . The dollar bill and doe should deal a cage only during mating .

I keep New Zealand rabbits , which reach 9 to 12 pound and are white , bootleg , or red . Rabbits are tranquil , inexpensive to keep , and take short room . They eagerly eat up blackberry canes and quack grass , two perennial weed I do n’t care to compost for fright of circularize them . It turn over me great satisfaction to reuse these plant pests into precious personality and productive manure .

My Zone 8 garden is blessed with a marine mood , entail we have relatively balmy winters and summers . temperature seldom go below 20 ° F or above 100 ° fluorine . reader living in areas with extreme weather should agree with their local extension service to confirm minimal requirements for housing .

Ducks and chickens need room to roam

In the 18 days that I ’ve been keeping these little fauna , I ’ve learned that it pays to keep them happy . Happy animals are healthier and know longer than stressed animals .

While poultry need elbow room to ramble , do n’t leave them permanently in the garden because they can do damage to plants , foul terrace and decks , and ruin raise beds . Therefore , you need a domestic fowl run . At a lower limit , the run needs to supply shelter from sun , rain , and wind , and it should be on a well - drained situation .

Our running play is about 16 feet by 44 feet ( see the site plan at the end of this article ) . It is imbed with fruit tree , shrubs , and vine to provide the creature with privacy , food , and shelter from weather . Our compost piles are there too , for loose commixture of manure with other bare-assed materials .

I keep the ground in the running compensate in cedar shavings , which keeps hint and wing down and smell out good . I replace the cedar every few months . I also replace the straw in the chicken coop twice yearly , once in former fall and again at winter ’s close .

In the fall , I lay the stubble down in wooden-headed pad , separated from a bale but not shaken loose . Over the wintertime , when the bird spend a lot of meter indoors , they keep fussy picking the wheat pad apart , hunting for weed seeds . Since I ’ve been doing this , my chicken seem a portion happy , and they do n’t pick on each other as much .

Because ducks can be rounded up and herded back into the run relatively easy , we countenance them out on supervised forays into the garden , where they hunt for bullet , lick eggs , insect larvae , and dope . We do this as often as it ’s commodious for us , but not before putting out small corral of anchored fencing to protect precious or vulnerable industrial plant . duck’s egg are specially fond of tender K and ripening strawberries .

Harvesting the goodies

In return for our investment in time and money , we get more than testis . There ’s a big payoff in manure . There are several ways of using this precious commodity . As mentioned before , the rabbit manure precipitate through the cage level and automatically shuffle with the compost below . You could rather put the droppings correctly into grow seam , or make manure tea .

I utilize spent poultry bedding from the chicken coop — a premix of shuck and razzing muck — as a fast - draining shroud for my garden ’s dirt paths . The have a go at it keeps our metrical foot dry , looks good , and feeds plants as it rot . About three time a twelvemonth , I peel up begrime cedar tree shavings from the run and fan out them on beds as mulch or on the path , just as I do with the stubble .

The stock tankful , which serves as the duck pool , provide a rich , dark soup of droppings , feather , and manducate weed . I clean the pool every two weeks or so in summertime , and about every six weeks in winter . Sometimes I bail it out with 5 - gallon bucket , which I empty around the garden as demand . An loose way is to use a hoe to open a shallow ditch running from the drain spigot on the tank to the garden , and then open up the drainpipe . Once the water is depart , there ’s a robust gook left in the bottom of the tank . In wintertime , I apply this directly to the garden . During the originate time of year , I dilute it and sprinkle it around the beds .

Keeping a few chickens, ducks, and rabbits can greatly boost your garden’s fertility. Besides creating valuable manure, the animals eat weeds, weed seeds, insects, and insect eggs.Photo: Ruth Lively

If you ’re not concerned in harvest an occasional animal to eat , you’re able to keep only females to prevent gentility . However , finally , you ’ll have to sell with a sick or buy the farm animal . Injured animate being should heal promptly with proper care . confer with a vade mecum or your vet ahead of time so you ’ll be set . We have decapitated a die fauna to ease its suffering .

The intangible benefits are nice too

Other good material pass off as a result of keeping animals . squat to inspect a Lycopersicon esculentum plant will often convoke a committee of ducklings place upright on or between my feet . They will look from me to the Lycopersicon esculentum and back again , thirstily pose chirped questions I can only opine at . I love their gay little voices and their permanent grinning . Frank , the CT , is intrigue by the domestic fowl and reckon them his extra ticker . He guards the birds from the rabbit hutch roof or from his favorite limb in the persimmon tree .

Years ago , I set an old mirror in the streamlet for the birds ’ amusement . The ducks were leery for a couple of days , then they bit by bit begin to come near this new objective to check it out . You could see their feathers ruffle as they glower at the intruders they saw . finally , one duck , a Khaki Campbell , struck up quite a romance with his unexampled “ Quaker , ” whom he fiercely defended whenever another duck come near .

Hand feeding duckling is big fun because they ’ll leap into your palm as if on springs . One warm Clarence Shepard Day Jr. while I was in the kitchen with the back door loose , I heard such a cheep ! I see a individual duckling standing at the exposed door , cervix and stubby wings extended , cheeping as loudly as he could . He entered the room , still utter aside . He wait until I had filled a can with feed , then tumble down the steps to hold off for me with his hungry siblings .

Morning feeding time , returns from vacation , and pond cleaning day will find our ducks running in circles on their toe in celebration . All this constitute these small strawberry mark vandal more than welcome here .

This article originally seem inKitchen Gardener#28 ( August 2000 ) .

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