Author: Anna & Mark

Our chicks spend the
first month of their lives in paradise.  We set up their outdoor
brooder somewhere with plenty of cover and enough sun for the time
of year (full sun in early spring, morning sun in late spring, full
shade in summer), then open the door each morning and let them wander
free.  Until they get big enough to find the vegetable garden and
start scratching up the mulch, our miniature chickens get to eat bugs,
chickweed, and whatever else they can find all day every day.

This spring, we have
most of the back garden in a rye cover crop to grow organic matter, so
the lower end of the back garden seemed like the perfect spot for late
spring chick habitat.  Tall plants like rye (or raspberries) make
chicks feel very safe, so they spend more time pecking and less time
running away.

Here’s a shot of the
brooder from the other direction so you get an idea of what our chicks’
current habitat looks like.  The window side of the brooder faces
east so the chicks warm up quickly on chilly mornings, but then they
get shade during warm afternoons.  In contrast, the early
spring chicks had
their brooder window facing due south.  Since the door opens in a
different direction now than it did then, we were able to move the
brooder only about 15 feet down the slope and still give this set of
chicks plenty of space to graze where the last set seldom wandered.

And this picture sums up
the true theme of this post — gratuitous chick photos.  They
won’t be this cute for long, though, so don’t worry — I’ll post
something more substantial soon.

Forest pasture seven
(the one I’ve spent the most time experimenting on over the last year)
is brimming with potential this spring.  We have high hopes we’ll
taste our first homegrown Nanking
cherries from there
this year — the fruits are already about half size and are swelling
fast.

The fenceline
planting is also
doing well.  This area is actually right outside the pasture,
which makes it easy to establish new perennials without worrying about
trouble from chicken feet.  My hope is that the red curants,
comfrey, and sunchokes I planted there will reach into the pasture and
become chicken fodder over the years to come.

Of course, the biggest
change in pasture 7 over the winter was the addition of a couple of terraces.  It seems like my
worries about the
rotting timbers we used to hold the vertical faces up were unfounded — nothing
has moved over the winter and plants are already beginning to grow back
to hold the soil in place.

The comfrey roots I hacked out of the
forest garden and slipped into subsoil on the lower banks of the
terraces are also doing well.  That’s the great thing about
comfrey — it thrives pretty much no matter what.  The logs
I hauled out of the forest to add to that bank are also beginning
to work their way into the soil.

The only real failure so
far is the oat seeds that I scattered onto bare ground in early
spring.  Despite a smattering of straw to help the seeds
germinate, the pasture instead turned into a bird buffet, attracting
cardinals and sparrows to the feeder.  Luckily, there seems to be
enough wild growth present to keep our broilers happy as they explore
this pasture for the first time.