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Post by Awnry Abe on Apr 9, 2015 4:02:22 GMT
That should be in a book titled, "The Desperate Gardener". I'd have a chapter or two to contribute. I was out after dark two nights ago stringing a hot-wire 12" from the ground to keep the dogs from digging up my freshly planted pea beds.
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Post by Callie on Apr 9, 2015 14:06:03 GMT
I love the idea of a moat. IN TN, I had one on three sides of the garden. The chickens never went to the 3rd side, which was directly across from their coop. We had a large garden so maybe it was just too far from home for them or maybe I needed some shade over there.
I think this guys ramp is too steep. It would be hard getting a wheelbarrow up and over that. Maybe he doesn't need to do that though.
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Post by Skandi on Apr 9, 2015 20:21:22 GMT
Looks a lovely idea, I think with the size garden I have planned it would be a bit unwieldy though. I wonder about just having them upwind.. that would catch a lot of the bugs I think, certainly the flying ones.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 9, 2015 21:41:54 GMT
I'd envisioned using a moat system, but now am leaning towards using those chicken tunnels around the garden. Thanks for sharing the article Possum; the others here take my idea more seriously when I can document others are doing it. Thanks too for the tip about positioning the moats upwind to catch the bulk of the bugs. I have far more ideas than experience, so that concept might have escaped me.
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Post by manygoatsnmore on Apr 10, 2015 8:16:04 GMT
The chicken moat would probably thwart deer, but it looks like a pretty big project. I'd be happy just to keep my free-ranging chickens out of the garden! I need to clip wings and put up more chicken wire, I guess.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2015 13:18:56 GMT
My 8 yr old wants his own Banty hens this year and I'd like to do this tunnel for them around my raised beds. That way he can fool with his chickens whenever he wants and is close enough for me to keep an eye on ey him. I sell most of my eggs every week and he has ladies at church willing to buy his little eggs from him, lol. It should be a good experience in responsibility and business. Now to find the money for fencing and posts!
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Post by farmchix on Apr 20, 2015 13:27:55 GMT
I'd envisioned using a moat system, but now am leaning towards using those chicken tunnels around the garden. Thanks for sharing the article Possum; the others here take my idea more seriously when I can document others are doing it. Thanks too for the tip about positioning the moats upwind to catch the bulk of the bugs. I have far more ideas than experience, so that concept might have escaped me. I'm more about the tunnels, too. |
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Post by bearcreekfarm on Apr 26, 2015 3:09:27 GMT
We have a chicken moat in our garden. I say "in" rather than "around" because our garden/orchard covers about an acre and, so far, we only have about 100' or so of moat installed. But, we love, love, love, love it!!! I have enough fencing to add another 50' as soon as we have time to do it, and I have enough fencing wire to do a few hundred more feet, but I do not have enough posts and rails to go along with it. We are using chain link fencing for our moat. During my entire life, right up until we started the moat, I could not stand chain link fencing. But, as soon as I realized that we would need over 3000' of fencing to do the entire area, I started looking for cheap/free fence material. Turns out that I was able to scavenge chain link fairly easily, and for free, so now I am a big fan of it, lol. I do need to collect some more this year so that we can get this project finished some day  |
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Post by Bear Foot Farm on Apr 26, 2015 3:41:10 GMT
Keep in mind you might have to mow or trim around those tunnels and fences
I don't think the benefits justify the labor and expense
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Post by bearcreekfarm on Apr 27, 2015 2:45:43 GMT
We have 6' wide paths around the garden perimeter, just inside the moat. The chickens do a pretty good job of keeping the weeds and grass away from the fences on both sides of the moat. We also have a 7' high electric fence around the garden/orchard perimeter just outside of the moat (the outer fence of the moat and the electric fence share the same posts). DH trims under the bottom electric fence wire periodically to keep the wire clear of grass and weeds- that probably helps keep them down on that side as well (chickens can reach through the chain link fence to eat, but cannot reach as far as the wire). Really not a problem for us.
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