- So, why did the chicken cross the playground?
To get to the other slide.
(ukulele music)
If you choose this action,
you'll take on the responsibility of caring for chickens
as you integrate them into your permaculture life.
This is a big step to take,
so don't choose this one
unless you are absolutely sure you're ready.
As the late Bill Mollison said,
permaculture is a design system,
involving the placement of all the elements
of the landscape, of the living system
in the right relationship to each other.
Consider a chicken.
It has needs like most of us:
food,
a night resting place,
an elevated perch,
somewhere to shelter from the rain.
Companionship.
Chickens are sentient beings;
they have feelings and experience emotions.
It's important that we treat them with respect
and give them a life which is full of joy
and allows them to express their innate nature.
A chicken has yields too.
Feathers,
feather dust,
eggs,
chicken manure,
carbon dioxide from breathing.
The inputs are supplied from
various sources or other outputs.
The outputs go to various destinations
or provide other inputs.
The relation between elements
are what is truly important.
Permaculture works on making the connections
between these elements.
Permaculture is a skill that says where something goes
so that it functions in relation to other things.
Every time you don't do that,
you create trouble.
Every input that is not automatically supplied,
you must supply.
Every output that is not passed to something that uses it,
you have to deal with.
Therefore, all undesigned outputs are pollutants,
and all pollution is an undesigned output.
All unfulfilled needs are work,
and all work is the satisfaction of unfulfilled needs.
None of this is necessary if you have correctly
placed every element in relation
to its needs and its outputs.
Our goal is not to add chickens as an additional
segregated element that requires work
and produces pollution.
Our goal is to integrate the chickens into our life
in a harmonious way where their needs are provided for
and their yields are appreciated.
So let's go through the things chickens need.
They need a house,
companionship,
space to stretch their wings and scratch and forage.
They need the right food and, of course, clean water.
And the yields the chickens produce?
They produce manure,
carbon dioxide,
methane and ammonia gases.
If given a chance, scratched up ground
and turned over organic matter.
And if they are really happy and healthy, eggs.
So let's go back over each of those things one by one.
Your chickens will need a house
to protect them from the elements.
It can be very beautiful or very basic
as long as it provides a dry place
that keeps your girls out of the wind.
It will need some sturdy wide perches for them
to roost on at night
and one nest box for every four birds.
Make their nest box easily accessible
so that it's a pleasure for you to collect
your yield of eggs every day.
You don't need to spend a lot of money on the coop.
You can often find one second-hand or repurpose
some kind of shared or large container to do the job.
Make sure it has enough space for your girls to roost
and remember, your chickens are social animals
and definitely need companionship.
It's best to get yourself a small flock
of at least 3 to 4 birds at first
so that they have those friends to keep them company.
Keeping the coop clean is important.
One of the biggest yields from your chickens
will be manure,
and lots of manure can build up in the coop.
We recommend a solid floor
with a layer of sawdust or straw
that can be cleaned out every month.
You might also want to add an easy-to-clean
droppings board under the perches.
Another approach is to use a portable
chicken tractor to move your girls around
so their manure is not concentrated in one spot.
Either way, cleaning out the coop regularly
is important to keep pests and diseases at bay.
Chickens do a good job of keeping themselves
warm at night in all but the most extreme climates,
so we don't recommend insulating
the walls of your coop
as the insulation can be hard to clean
and will harbor mites.
Vents at the top and the bottom of the coop
are also important,
so the yields of co2, methane and ammonia gases
don't build up to harmful levels.
If chickens can't spend all their time in the coop, though,
they also need a place to stretch their wings.
Letting them free-range around your garden
occasionally is great, but they can be very destructive.
There's nothing worse than finding
your lovingly tended garden completely uprooted
by a pack of roving dinosaurs.
Even if you have a large yard,
it's unrealistic to expect that you will be able to
free-range your chickens every single day.
So how do you make sure your chickens
get the exercise they need?
You build them a chicken run.
A chicken run is a secure pen attached to the coop
that has at least one square meter
or 10 square feet of area per chicken.
In most places, this is technically enough space
to be classified as free-range,
but this is one of the rare cases in permaculture
where more is better.
The run needs to be predator proof,
including from above.
We recommend allowing your chickens free access
between the coop and the run.
One of the best ways to ensure your chickens are happy
and you harness the yields of their manure
and their scratching is to build a deep litter chicken run.
A deep litter chicken run is also the most effective way
to integrate your chickens into the garden
while satisfying their need to forage.
All you have to do is maintain a consistent thick layer
of loose organic matter in the bottom of the run.
We use wood chip, base sawdust from a local sawmill,
straw or dry leaves to achieve this.
We even add all the trimmings
from our vegetables and weeds from the garden.
This material gives your chicken
something to scratch through
and a habitat for all kinds of insects,
worms and microbes to thrive in.
It also means your chickens get a little extra food
and hours of entertainment each day.
Every six months or so,
we get a huge additional yield for the garden
in the form of all that broken down organic matter.
It's free compost!
One more thing your chickens need in their home
is a good spot to dust-bathe in.
It keeps their feathers clean and healthy
and helps keep down pests.
Choose a nice dry, sunny spot in the run
and add a barrow load of sandy soil.
You can make it even more effective and luxurious
by adding powdered charcoal,
fine rock dust,
or even food grade diatomaceous earth or DE.
It's super important that your chickens
get the right food too.
A laying hen needs lots of energy and protein
to produce an egg almost every day.
When you start out, I think it's best if you provide
a high-quality organic commercial laying pellet.
In permaculture,
we try to be as self-sufficient as possible,
but this can't be at the expense of your chickens' health.
By providing good quality commercial feed to your birds,
you make sure that they get
all the vitamins and minerals
they need to be healthy.
In a few months, you can find a source of local grain
and learn to make your own mix.
It's not too hard.
You might even grow some of your own seeds
like sunflower or amaranth to add to it
and then improve its nutritional value
by soaking or fermenting the grain.
Either way, only ever give them enough pellets or grain
that they'll finish it in a few minutes.
That way, there won't be any laying around
to attract mice or other pests.
Of course, you should also provide them
with lots of other things to eat on top of their main supply.
There's a bunch of different home grown options
that work really well.
The more options you given them,
the less commercial feed they'll need.
Bugs of any kind are a great high-protein
addition to their diet.
They absolutely love them.
One of the best ways to get rid of any
caterpillars, grasshoppers, slugs and snails
that you collect in your veggie patch
is to feed them to your chickens.
You can also grow your own mealworms,
black soldier flies, or even set up
a dedicated worm farm to give them regular treats.
For your chickens to be really healthy,
they also need access to plenty of green plant material.
They can get lots of green pick when they free-range,
but growing extra leafy greens for them
is a great option.
You can do this by giving them sprouts
or by growing microgreens under a wire mesh.
The mesh allows them to pick at the leaves
without letting them scratch up the entire thing.
You can also grow a range of edible herbs
just outside the wire of their rung
so that they can pick off any tips
that poke their way in.
Likewise, planting an overhanging mulberry tree
gives another integration.
It benefits from the extra nutrients,
and the chickens will clean up any
excess fruit that you don't harvest.
Kitchen scraps also make a diverse protein rich
addition to their diet,
and it's another waste stream
that you're diverting from landfill.
But be aware that in some places,
it's actually illegal to feed kitchen scraps
to your chickens.
Yes, kitchen scraps.
What kind of tree lays eggs?
A poultree.
Nothing, you're not giving me anything.
Chickens don't have teeth,
so they also need some grit
to help their gizzards to grind up food.
A small container of shell grit
gives them calcium as well.
Your chickens also need access
to clean water in their run.
Don't rely on just a single source.
Nothing will stress your chickens out more
than if they run out of water on a hot day
(ukulele music)
So there you have it.
Only one thing left to do.
Find your chickens.
There are many different types of chicken
to choose between,
from hybrids to heritage,
bantams to Brahma,
and everything in between.
Hybrid laying chickens
are often the easiest birds to get,
either at point of lay,
which means they're still young
and about to lay their first eggs,
or as older rescue hens
from commercial egg farms.
Hybrids are a cross between two other breeds
chosen to maximize their egg production.
They will produce the most eggs per year,
but the extra strain of laying so much can mean
they stop laying earlier in their life.
Whereas heritage breeds might not lay
quite as many eggs but can be really unique
and keep laying for many, many years.
There are more than 500 breeds of chickens,
so there really is a breed for everyone.
And many breeds come in standard size and bantams,
so if you don't have much space
or have small children,
consider getting Bantam silkies
or some cochin bantams,
or some other small breed.
You can raise your own from day-old chicks
or even eggs you order online,
but this will take quite a lot of setup and time,
and you'll have to deal with a lot of roosters.
It's much easier to buy point of lay pullets
from a local breeder.
Use the links below to find a local chapter
of your favourite breeds' poultry club
and get in touch with them.
You might just find yourself integrated
into a whole community of people
who can guide you through your new avian adventure.
Whatever breed you choose,
make sure you spend some time
preparing a coop and run
and planning how you're going to integrate
your new friends into your permaculture life.