If you do a bit of reading on permaculture you will see that integrating animals into the garden is very beneficial. You do have to be careful about allowing them access to tender delicious plants.
The nitrogen from the chickens, goats, and llama, all goes into the compost. The chickens convert weeds, bugs, MICE, other unknown things, into eggs. We have seen our chickens attack live running mice and eat them almost whole. Before this batch of chickens, I had no idea they were such hunters.
They do a great job of scratching up bugs in the underbrush and doing a bit of airing out of the compost heap.
KD inspects one of the broiler chickens who is obviously getting rather large!
Barred rocks scratching between raised beds.
In the photo above, look at the upper right hand corner. You will see a blurred image of our cat Fuzzy. She is running for her life because aggressive little roosters are chasing her. Our cats (we have 5) mostly just watch the chicken antics.
I had something like 12 cabbages growing and have been letting them grow and grow. Lately, two have simply burst (from the extensive rains?) so I have picked them. My oldest child who we thought was allergic to cabbage tried some (stir-fried with tumeric, nutmeg, sauted mustard seeds) and loved it!
So, this is a great metric for garden success – child now BEGS for cabbage!
Share how you use animals in your garden!
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