Free Guide · Growing Vegetables With Chickens
Same seeds, same punnet, planted the same day, in two different beds. One had chickens on it. The difference is not subtle.
Yes, chickens improve garden soil, and the difference shows up in the crop rather than just the soil test. In Chicken City I let the flock work a bed over winter, then lock them out for the growing season and plant into it without adding any fertiliser. Beds the chickens have worked grow bigger, heavier cropping plants than beds they have never been in, even when the chicken beds get less sun and less water.
I bang on about this constantly, so this time I went and found the proof in my own garden. I had not set it up as an experiment. I just happened to plant the same things in two different places, and by the middle of summer it was so obvious which bed had had chickens on it that I went and got the camera.
This is the whole argument for an integrated system in one comparison. Not a soil test, not a theory, just two sets of plants from the same punnet of seedlings.
I did this with my 2 chickens on my garden box and this year the dirt is GOLD!!!!
@nancyperez6678
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The side by side, in the garden
Come and look at both beds with me, starting in the room the chickens spent all winter in.
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What the two beds actually are
The first bed is the veggie room inside Chicken City. The chickens were shut in there for about three or four months over winter. They weeded it, they scratched it over, and they fertilised it, which is the only job I asked of them. Once it warmed up I locked them out so the summer crops could have their turn, and I planted straight into what they left behind.
The second bed is my greenhouse courtyard, around the side. It is fenced off precisely so the goats and the chickens cannot get in, which makes it the perfect control. No chickens have ever worked that soil.
Here is the part that matters. The courtyard has the advantages. It gets significantly better sun, and it is rigged up to a watering system. The veggie room does not get the best sun in Chicken City, and I will admit I got the placement of that room a bit wrong when I built it. One bed in there sits under a grape and is shaded pretty much the entire day.
So if sun and water were the whole story, the courtyard should win comfortably. It does not come close.
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Get Chicken City updates by emailThe silverbeet test
The clearest comparison on the whole property is the silverbeet, because there is no wriggle room in it. Same batch of seeds, same punnet, planted on the same day, in the two beds.
The silverbeet in the veggie room went in maybe eight weeks ago. It sits in the shade almost all day under that grape. It has had no attention from me whatsoever. It is thriving, and there is parsley coming up happily beside it.
The silverbeet in the courtyard has better sun and a watering system, and it is doing very little. Same seed, same day, sad plant.
The zucchini tells the same story. The courtyard one has one small zucchini on it and I do not think I will get a feed out of it. The ones in the veggie room are enormous, and here is the bit that actually counts: they are not just enormous in a lush green leaves way, they are covered in fruit. Big plants with no crop would mean I had simply thrown nitrogen at them. Big plants carrying heaps of fruit means the soil is genuinely good.
Also on the channel
Which goes in first, the chickens or the plants
The timing question this whole method rests on, and the order I would use if I were starting again.
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How to run a bed this way
There is no clever trick here, which is the point. The method is a rotation, and it is mostly about when the chickens are allowed in.
Chickens in over the cold months. Mine spent three or four months in the veggie room over winter. That is long enough for them to clear the weeds, turn the surface over and leave their manure behind, and it is time the bed was not growing anything anyway.
Lock them out when it warms up. This is the step people skip. The chickens have to be shut out before you plant, or they will make short work of everything you put in. Once they are out, the summer crops get the room to themselves.
Plant straight in and then leave it alone. I plopped the tomato, the zucchini and the silverbeet in and did nothing else. No fertiliser, no feeding, no soil improver.
Let them back in at the end of the growing season and the cycle starts again.
One small thing that surprises people: I do not pull the weeds out of that room during summer. They are not doing much harm and the chickens genuinely enjoy them when they come back in at the end of autumn. Why would I weed it myself when I have twenty chickens who are happy to do it, and who will thank me for leaving the job for them?
It is worth saying where I garden, because it changes the timing. I am in Macedon in Victoria, so I get cold winters with real frost and hot dry summers. The shape of the rotation holds anywhere, but the months it lands in will not.
If you want to see how the beds, rooms and gates are actually laid out, that is all in Chicken City, the details.
All of this ends up on a plate, which is the only reason I grow any of it. A courtyard zucchini gets eaten politely. A veggie room one gets eaten constantly, and it turns out a glut of homegrown vegetables mostly needs good salt and not much else.
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The one that goes on everything out of this garden
Alyce's Organic Flavour Bomb Salt
Organic, and the all rounder of the range. Veggies, soup, potatoes, anything savoury out of the garden.
Shop the Flavour Bomb SaltWhat goes wrong
You can overdo the nitrogen. This is the honest catch with my method. If you end up with a lot of chicken manure in one spot you can tip the bed into a nitrogen imbalance, and then you get all leaf and not much crop. I have only run into it once in all the years I have been doing this, so I would call it a high level problem rather than a beginner one, but it is real and it is worth knowing it exists. If you want a whole video on that, tell me in the comments and I will make one.
A badly set up system gets destroyed. This is the bigger risk by a mile, and it is the reason most people never try any of this. Chickens can be far too destructive. If the timing and the fencing are not right they will not gently improve your garden, they will flatten it. Everything above works because the chickens are in the bed at the right time and locked out at the right time. Get that wrong and you will conclude, fairly, that the whole idea is nonsense.
Questions I get asked
Do chickens really improve garden soil, or is that just a nice idea?
They really do. The silverbeet in this comparison came from the same punnet and went in on the same day, and the plants in the bed the chickens had worked are thriving while the ones in the bed they have never touched are barely moving.
Do I still need to add fertiliser?
I did not add any. Not before planting, not during the season. The chickens did the enriching over winter and that was the whole input.
Can you have too much chicken manure?
Yes. Too much in one bed can push it into a nitrogen imbalance, which shows up as plenty of leaf and disappointing fruit. I have hit it once, so it is not the first thing to worry about, but it is worth watching for.
Do the chickens live in the veggie beds all year?
No, and that is the key to it. They are in over the cold months, locked out for the growing season, and let back in at the end of it.
Will this work if the bed is shady?
It worked in mine, and mine is genuinely shady. The veggie room does not get the best sun in Chicken City and one bed sits under a grape in shade nearly all day, and it is still out growing a sunnier bed on a watering system.
Thinking about putting chickens in your veggie patch?
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More from Chicken City
Plants or chickens first is the one to read next if you are starting from bare ground, because it settles the order.
The best chicken coop design explains why the birds and the plants share a fence at all, which is the thinking behind everything on this page.
How Chicken City protects plants from chickens is the practical answer to the destruction problem above, if locking them out entirely is not an option for you.
Chicken City, the details has the layout and the rough plans.
Watch next
The food forest the veggie room sits inside
If one bed can do this, here is what happens when the whole run is planted out.
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You can also follow the garden day to day on Alyce's Edible Garden, or watch the full Chicken City tour playlist.
