Farmall Cub

My chickens have just now taken to digging holes in there outside pen in the dirt to dust themselves and look for bugs. They just started doing it recently like the dumb things didnt know before that they could dig Now that they have figured this out they apparently think its the best thing ever because the darn things wont stop! I even went out a filled in the holes the other day and when I let them out today they had more dug up within 5 minutes. Oh well, I guess theres nothing I can do about it. If they werent producing so many good eggs my hatchet and I would have solved the problem from the start

Jake, I didn't know chickens could dig holes! While I live in the country now, I grew up in town where my dad worked at the steel mill. When I got out of the Army I moved out of town and stayed there. One time my neighbor was going to KY for a few days and said that I could keep all the eggs if I would feed the chickens while he's gone. When I cracked that first egg I never realized that a real country grown egg had a deep orange color. And when I tasted it, it was like eating the flavor of 10 eggs all at once. A person thinks that they know what eggs taste like, but they really don't until they try one raised by chickens that forage for food. Larry

Jake there is a guy in VA has his run set up that he slides it along to a new area from time to time so the chickens get fresh greens. American Agricultarist Magazine had a write up about him a couple of years ago. Does the same with his turkeys too. Mows the grass, keeps the bugs down and fertilizes all at the same time. I guess it would keep the pasture from going to brush too. With your chickens he could till as well.

Bill

I believe they are called chicken tractors.

Eugene

Bill, funny that you should mention that my dad suggested that idea a while ago and while i havent done that yet I may in the future. We were going to take a old hay wagon that I have with some bad bearings, at least there bad enough that you cant take it down the road, but around the yard and woods is fine, and build a coop on top of it that we could move around. Maybe i will do that in the future. I just built another coop for some bantams im getting in my old goat barn. And yeah those chickens sure can dig They have a hole out there now must be almost at least 3 feet deep. So you would think that you could just fill the holes in with the dirt there digging up but it dissapears. I know some of it blows away, but darn thats a lot of dirt. Maybe there eating some of it Back in school I remember hearing in health class about a disorder where pregnant women would eat dirt, and laundry starch and whatnot....cant seem to remeber what this was called.....Oh well , where I live those chickens should be hitting rock shortly