Getting the Most Out of Our Poultry Raising

Getting the Most Out of Our Poultry Raising

A question to start with.

Have you set up an orchard as yet? If not then consider planting your fruit trees close to the hen house, actually adjacent to the hen house is ideal.

Then what you do is just put a good chicken fence around the orchard. This then becomes the free range zone for all your fowl, chickens, ducks etc. And will keep animals such as deer and the like out of the orchard.

Just have an access gate installed so that you can get equipment and such in and out when needed.

The exit for the chickens is open to the now fenced off orchard which keeps them out of your garden areas but still allows them to fully free range as normal. If you bury that fencing a foot underground then it will also keep predators like foxes out of the chicken area too thus preventing losses to the foxes and other such predators. If your orchard area is not massive then you can consider also netting the top but this gets a bit expensive and you need to make sure that you allow for the height that the trees will grow to.

By doing all this you keep the predators and birds out that would target your poultry and fruits but it still allows the bees and good insects to come in and do the pollinating for you.

If you are serious about your homesteading venture, then the cost to put the enclosure up will be greatly compensated by greatly increased productivity and harvests from your orchard and eliminating the loss of poultry to predators.

Having your orchard and hen house together and enclosed fully like this allows you to increase breeding of the poultry also as the threat of predators is eliminated. You can always enclose a small area as a brood section for the sitting hens to naturally hatch out the eggs and then care for the chicks or ducklings until they are old enough to join the main flock.

This then increases your meat supply by having a ready supply of excess males to invite to dinner, just don’t tell them that they are the main course.

Again this is a way to make your homestead more sustainable and profitable. By implementing such a structure this could allow for you to increase the number of poultry you have and therefore allow you to gain some extra income from selling the eggs.

Duck eggs are highly prized and sought after by bakers as they make the very best sponge cakes ever. Here is my very, very old sponge recipe:

Tina’s 3 Ingredient Sponge Cake

Beat together 3 duck eggs and ¾ cup sugar until thick. Fold in 1 cup plain white flour. Put into two greased and lightly floured sandwich tins and bake for 20 minutes at 180oC or 350oF or until they spring back when touched in the centre. Leave in the tins for 10 minutes before turning onto a cooling rack. When cold sandwich together with raspberry jam and whipped cream. Dust top lightly with icing sugar.

By confining the poultry to the orchard area also has the added benefit of keeping bugs out of the orchards fruits, as things like coddling moth travel down the trees to burrow into the ground at the base of the trees as they prepare to pupate. The chickens then eat them either before they pupate or will scratch them up and eat them as pupae before they have the chance to develop into the moth and breed further. This is the most effective method of bug control in the orchard.

The hens will also eat any windfalls that you don’t want and this will reduce any incidence of disease spread or infestation from fruit flies etc. If you want the windfalls then just gather what windfalls you want before you let the hens out in the mornings. It really is that simple.

The chickens will also keep the grass down under the fruit trees and fertilise it all while they are going about their business foraging for bugs and grubs etc. This saves a heap of time by not having to mow the grass in the orchard and it will mean that your chickens and ducks will lay the deepest orange yoked eggs that you will have ever seen with a flavour that is totally out of this world compared to the pasty pale and very poor excuses for eggs that are purchased in the stores.

It really is the ideal place to free range our poultry and helps us to reduce costs and time by not having to deal with the bugs, mowing the orchard, fertilising the orchard or insect control. The chickens will gladly do all that for us for free and help reduce the feed costs for the poultry as well.

Another good idea is to have the back of your hen house backing onto your green house. The chickens produce a fair bit of heat at nights while they are all huddled up together roosting and sleeping and this heat will actually do you good in a small green house by allowing the heat to access the green house via a top vent in the wall. Remember hot air rises. As this cools slightly the hot air drops and surrounds the plants in the green house keeping them nice and warm at night which in turn encourages growth.

With having the two buildings as it were connected, this also gives you good access to let the chickens in there once the crops have finished to clean up any leftover vegetation, bugs and grubs etc. that may be present and they will fertilise the ground for you at the same time again in preparation for the next planting.

If you put in a normal sized door way connecting the two buildings then you have a far shorter distance to take the chicken manure from the hen house to the green house. This can be done as soon as the chickens have cleaned up the greenhouse. This will mean that the greenhouse will be ready for planting come Spring again as the manure will have composted, the worms will have taken much of the goodness down into the soil where it is most needed and enable a well manured greenhouse for planting time.

Again saving you money and time in the long run.

Just a few things for you to consider when you are contemplating your orchard, greenhouse and poultry raising. All these can be run in unison with each other and make your venture far more sustainable and profitable.

Just remember that it is easier to fence off one bigger area than having to try and provide chicken proof protection in several areas if you want to have free range chickens.

Our poultry do not understand that our vegetable gardens and flower beds are not their personally designed gourmet dining rooms. I have been there and done that.

Hopefully this will help those that are planning their orchards and hen houses in some way.

How have you planned out your property to accommodate an orchard, Greenhouse and hen house? I would love to read your comments and thoughts on this.

Tina