Our Chicken Tunnels, Coop, and Run Setup around the Garden
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 มิ.ย. 2021
- Chicken chunnels are a great option for a gardener with chickens. Here's our setup, including the chicken coop, chicken run, and chicken tunnels around two sides of our large garden area. Chickens are great for weed control and pest control for our gardens, and here's a way to help them work for you while keeping them safe. Plus, chunnels are a perfect way to "free range" chickens without the risk of actually free ranging them or the daily effort of moving chickens daily with a chicken tractor. Win-win for the time-strapped gardener!
More resources:
Beginner's Garden Podcast Episodes (and blog posts) on Chickens in the Garden --
A Gardener's Guide to Getting Started with Chickens: journeywithjill.net/gardening...
Gardening with Chickens: How to Use Your Flock for Manure, Natural Tilling, Pest Control, and More: journeywithjill.net/gardening... - แนวปฏิบัติและการใช้ชีวิต
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I’ve got a friend who literally lets his chickens and rabbits free range in his garden. I have no idea why they don’t eat his garden but they don’t. They only eat the bugs and weeds. He lets them out everyday and then they go back to their hutches every night. It’s the damndest thing I’ve ever seen.
My friend let's her chooks in her garden too and they nibble but don't destroy anything. Mostly they eat the bugs.
They destroy my garden lol
My rabbits generally are pretty good about some things, but the chickens are destructive maniacs!!! 😂
My parents used to have chickens roam free at daytime in the garden.
The first two years, my mom tried to prevent them from eating the crops and then she gave up and simple only planted what they didn't really liked.
Worked exceptionally well, chickens have a wide range of plants they don't like or only like a little bit.
You only have to make sure, to not plant to young, because chickens always search fresh areas for bugs and can kill small plants in the process.
Your friend is really lucky!!
Keeping weeds down around fencing is actually a regular problem in gardening, since weeding tools often get caught in the fencing, and may damage fencing over time. Making chicken tunnels around the garden seems like a great way to reduce perimeter weeds, and feed the chickens at the same time.
Great idea! I’ve always used salt on the fence lines. It works but the runoff kills the grass☹️
@@BoneyRasputin you could use sawdust to keep down the grasses and weeds. It's natural and won't harm the birds, plus it looks nice.
My grandparents had chickens. But I never knew that chickens eat grass/weeds.
@@willhorting5317 Chickens are meat lovers as well. My chickens love, love, love stale bread, meat, fish, insects. They like veg. and weeds. They do not like Bermuda grass.
One of the best ways of incorporating chickens into your vegetable garden is to open up your old beds to the chickens on a rotating schedule. The set up I saw had 6 identical circular beds with domed moveable chicken coop that fit over the beds. The vegetable beds had a rotating planting schedule, every time a bed reached the end of it's productivity, the coop was moved, the chickens had a feast and cleared the bed of weeds and pests, added fertiliser and dug the ground over. When the coop moved to its next bed, the result was a lovely rich bed to sow the next round of crops.
I thought you could try something similar, having a moveable cage that connects to your chicken run when you're ready for the chickens to let rip in your beds when they're at the end of their season...
I'm sitting in my apartment in Stockholm, being an operating technician, scribbling down tips from you if I ever just - dump it all and move out into a place where I can have chickens… Lovely garden and setup!
Software engineer in a tiny apartment in San Francisco, CA doing the same!
That’s fantastic.
Dream baby, dream
VFX artist here, I am sick of working on Hollywood movies. I find myself watching these videos and I am mentally preparing for a radical move when the opportunity presents itself.
@@jupitereye4322 you are more wise than most.
Awesome! We live in Grizzly bear country and chickens are a big attraction for them. This coops compounds etc are should have heavy duty electric fencing. A safety note of the t-posts. I like to use a tennis ball to cover the exposed top end. Cut a small hole and just pop it on. If you want a muted color just spray paint it. The reason for the ball is to prevent becoming impaled on it should you trip and fall onto the post. Love your channel!
Congratulations on your setup. You look set for the coming food shortages. Thanks for the free advice. I'll give you some back in return. Those black streaks on your roof are a bacteria called Gloeocapsa Magma and they eat the limestone and other minerals found in modern shingles. If you let it continue it can take 10 years off the life of your roof. I'd charge around $500 to $750 to clean your roof, but you or your husband can do it just like a professional by spraying a mix of bleach and either Dawn Ultra dish soap or Gain laundry detergent to help the bleach stick to the roof better. We use a big 12v pump and specialized sprayers and soaps, but a 2 gallon pump sprayer will do the job. Take straight household laundry bleach and a couple of tablespoons of soap and mix it in the sprayer and pump it up and spray directly on any parts that have the black growth. Get it good and wet and then let it sit. The rain will rinse it away after a few good downpours. Make sure you wear a good quality mask and goggles and try to do it on a calm overcast day. After a rain or 2 you can go back up and hit the spots that didn't quite die off if there are any. If you have sunglasses with polarized lenses you can see which areas will need additional spraying while you are doing the work. You can also use liquid pool shock and dilute it down 50/50 with water so it's around the same strength as regular bleach. It's a bit more economical that way since pool shock is 10% or 12.5% sodium hypochlorite as opposed to the typical laundry bleach which is around 5%. Pool shock usually costs a dollar or 2 more per gallon than laundry bleach, but goes twice as far. Make sure your bleach is at least 5% and fresh. It gets weaker over time. 8 gallons of pool shock should do the trick from what I could see of your roof.
I hope to see a clean roof on your house in a future video.
Great video! Love you chicken tunnels! I've never had those I garden the way my Mama taught me. Our chickens free range with me every evening after work in warm weather, about 8 months out of the year where i live. I work in the garden and they scratch and peck at the bugs and weeds I throw them. I have a combination of raised beds, some gravel in between and ground plantings. My method is to put up chicken wire when everything is getting started. Everthing gets it...in the ground and on top of the raised beds and the chickens learn this area is off limits with discouraging hand claps and shooing as well. When I take down the chicken wire 2-3 weeks later they pretty much leave everything alone. If they come near the plants I give them the Southern Mama "AANNT" and they turn right around. This training time is worth it because they really keep bug/pest populations in check. Bugs are more destructive. I have some stumps, perches for them too in the garden. I also have 3 compost piles on the ground that they love. They turn it for me and get lots of worms as a treat and added bonus for me they add some chicken poo to the compost. Chickens can be in the garden free ranging successfully you just have to set boundaries with them. Just like with EVERTHING, without boundaries destruction will follow.
Thank you for sharing that! I'll be doing this also!
...and as with _mostly_ everything, if you give a little responsibility and respect then you _get_ it back, too! Not always from humans though, mind you! Great story, thanks for sharing.
Great looking garden and chicken tunnels. I remember many years ago my Dad was having lots of trouble with the Fox and Coyotes coming in at night walking off with a chicken sometimes. He found that they would dig under the fence to get them so what he did was dig out the entire area for a new pen and he buried heavy duty chicken wire under 3 inches of dirt and reseeded it before building the new pen where the buried wire connected to the wire running up the walls. Those Fox and Coyotes tried many times to dig under the pen but were stopped each time they ran into that buried wire and left a little blood when they couldn't dig through it.
Your husband did an awesome job building the chicken pen, great ideas for the yard birds and your garden. love it!
Awesome, I'm sold, I bet this will be a god-send for dealing with my 2 annual grasshopper infestations. Soon as the rains get here thousands of grasshoppers from the fields swarm my gardens and landscapes.
I'm not sure how much they'll help with grasshoppers. I'm sure the chickens catch any they can, but grasshoppers get in my garden regardless.
@@thebeginnersgarden Honestly i chase down and kill the big grasshoppers, but I'm happy if they can go eat some of the teeny tiny grasshoppers so they can't grow up. Predators ended the free ranging/flock, so i need something ike this for the new flock I'm starting.
I'm fairly confident they'll help, They eat almost anything, I've had chicken's kill big field mice many many times, I was dumbfounded the first time i saw a chicken with a mouse in it's mouth, and laughing when i saw the rest of the flock chasing the chicken FOR the mouse. Chicken's are ambitious predators for their size.
You are very lucky, no ground predators. Pieces of wood just stuffed under the chicken tunnel gaps wouldn't stop a possum raccoon or a wild hog. let along a neighbor's dog. Also, To keep the girlz eggs clean I have their roost area away from the nesting box ...looks as though your girls have to walk right through their poop from the roost area in front of the nest box. just my 2cents from grandma :)
BEST WISHES !!
Yeah this is what I was thinking also. It looks great, but if I did that here, they'd all be dead that very day.
@@CanadianPermacultureLegacy don't you have dogs? have them patrol outside the secondary fence, like she's doing.
New chicken farmer here...this is the second video that I’ve seen with chicken tunnels...love the idea great space saver plus the chickens can run and jump in their coop area. Awesome and thank you for sharing. I’m getting ideas on having a tunnel throughout our backyard for them to free range. ✊🏾❤️❤️❤️✊🏾
I will never forget the first time I saw a chicken eat a mouse. 🤯 Then, before I could even vocalize my shock it grabbed another mouse and just slurped it down. I was blown away! 😳
I watched some time ago, plus 6 months back and today i just received funding for my little chicken project. Thank you so much for the inspiration.
To having a chicken tunnel beside a garden of sorts. Is so amazing to see with the new hen hut.
I don't have chickens or a garden but enjoyed your video immensely. Some folks watch these types of informative ones for entertainment - that would be me. ❤ the chickens!
this is such a smart set up for ANYONE to have if you own chickens !! good job !
To make a very strong fertilizer put a big drum up on bricks/cinders so you can put a bucket under neat it, make it lean a bit forward so the drips fall in the bucket, make a small hole 3 fingers on the side of the drum up from the bottom and fill the drum with chicken manure and dead leafs , every time you need to fertilize the plants pour a bucket of water in the drum and let it drip out of the bottom hole in to the empty bucket.
That's a good idea. And you can always change the shape of the tunnel if you wanted to give the chickens new scratching area and let the old areas rejuvenate.
We had one. The racoons learned that if they stood on the top of the arc, their weight would partially collapse it and they could reach the chickens inside, trapping them as they reached in with their grabby scratchy hands.
Hotwire would fix that pronto.
I've had raccoons in the past that figure it out they could grab the legs of the chickens through the knothole in the wood. They would grab the chicken's leg and then dismembered the chicken's leg off! A dead legless chicken on the floor of the coop in the morning. Thankfully that was an easy patch fix and Rocky the raccoon was never able to dismember any of my chickens again. I added Hotwire around my chicken coop and my garden.
Yeah unfortunately raccoons are way smarter than most realize they tend to figure out ways that we don't think of.
my uncle tried to raise pheasants in portable coops and the raccoons learned all they had to do was get the pheasants riled up, stick there hand through the wire and sooner or later a pheasant would run his beautiful retarded neck right into the dirty little coon paw. One quick yank, instant head snack. Since all pheasants want to do is run this could go on all night, and any that didn't get their brains sucked like the money tube at the bank might have run themselves to death for good measure.
@@julieanderson5184 Is Hotwire just electric fence, or something else?
@@shandor2522 hi, basically yes. You can get a strand of hot wire or a what they call a polywire which looks like a rope that has metal woven into it and then there are Hotwire net systems for chickens sheep goats pigs that sort of thing.
What a fun idea, instead of fencing myself and my front door in and giving them 70 acres to roam, I could create some more boundaries with benefits. Well done, and thank you for sharing!
I can't wait to try this system in some of my gardens. I usually have to stop allowing my birds free range from mid-April to Sept. because they WILL scratch everything to smithereens and help themselves to anything they like. It is bad enough to have pheasants and quail dust bathing in the corn and squash, but they have taught the chickies to jump up for corn and other small grains, and I can forget about having lettuce and peas. This seems like a good plan to keep the chickens busy where I want them, and they will love the grasshoppers and weeds I scare up.
Great idea. I learned the hard way about letting the chickens into my garden area. There are dangers in the garden for chickens. Tomato plants are toxic and beans. A peacock is the only bird I've seen go through a garden and only eat insects and bugs. They don't touch the fruit or vegetables. A chicken damages the fruit or vegetable and eventually rots on the vine or bush.
My girls loved fresh pepper leaves. Almost destroyed my entire pepper plant row.
I loved how the chickens follow her around, very charming.
We have lots of hawks, eagles, turkey vultures, and a few owls around our place. It is common for us to see up to 5 Bald Eagles at one time in a couple of our trees. We moved last summer and our chickens stayed at our old house. We used to let our chickens out in the yard, but at this new place I think the new chicks we got this spring will just be lunch! I'll build a big run, lol.
You must live in Minnesota
@@camilojames1 No Washington, along the Skagit River
Crazy
dude you need a freaking AA gun for that many birds xD
You left your birds behind?
The zip ties are easy and work well but the sun will bake them and make them very brittle which means crafty fox and raccoons can rip them free and get in the smallest of openings.
I had to make some very sturdy animal proof runs and coops for my chickens and on any fence mending I use wire or steel zip ties.
I keep any sharp wire ends from sticking out which could snag and injure a chicken.
Also have to worry about digging underneath any fence or runs.
I always bend a 12” section of fencing or lay down and attach a carpet of fencing at the base of the runs or fence and bury it shallow topped with gravel to discourage digging.
The rain eventually helps the gravel to sink into the fencing with the soil and makes for a non friendly digging attempt.
I make some homemade tent pegs with thin ribar rods and drive them down 2’ deep in any section of run or fence that needs more ground support.
I had an extra pile of bricks from a decorative wall I built and lined the base of the coop area to keep diggers out.
One thing that is so important but very often overlooked that will greatly increase the lifespan of your coop is to take the time to apply flashing to any lumber that touches the ground.
Get a roll of flashing and mold it to your lumber first before putting it together.
Or…..you can use steel 2x4’s.
My biggest problems have been from fox and raccoons but if your chickens are free range and the local hawks find out they can deplete your flock very quickly.
I tried free ranging mine and once the hawks found out how easy it was they would hit them Hard.
Love that tunnel Brilliant! Thank you.
Until a couple years ago I had 70 plus hens and roosters that free ranged during the days and that included our garden. At night they went to their assigned roosts themselves (three separate roosts pens) as they were trained to do.
They ate plenty of bugs of course and some plants were damaged but mostly they went at the weeds. We did not loose enough veggie plants to stop them from free ranging.
I live in LA, we had an average city home backyard and we had chickens. Had no clue what were.doing at first, their chicken coop was the garage!😆 We lost a few chickens to birds of prey, which we were surprsied because we were in the middle of the city! So we had a chicken coop made for them to sleep and lay eggs. It was an awesome time! Sadly, all my girls got old and stop laying eggs. So my mom's friend made Salvadorean tamales out of them. Some day soon, I want to have chickens again. But this time around, keep 1 of the roosters to fertilize the girls so we can keep having chicks.
The chicken tunnel is a lovely idea!
Nice setup! You're hubby looks like a good carpenter.
I know this must sound strange but I'm thinking about using this for my cats. They're indoor cats but I would love to have them outside without a leash and without the risk of them running away and getting run over by cars (I live near a sort of large road). Maybe build a bigger cage around a tree so that they could climb as well
You're a responsible cat owner. The worst problem in Australia about cats is irresponsible owners letting their cats roam free and killing local / native Australian animals to extinction.
Not strange at all! Some cat owners have an enclosed *catio* (CAT paTIO) where the cats can safely roam "outdoors"... safe for the cats from predators and safe for prey from the cats.
you wanna kbow something really strange... My parents used to hang a zipwire or leash to the drying rack/mill in the backgarden so our cat could go outside if she wanted but not roam around as much and go to our neighbours gardens
That would be great! Some people also do catios of different sizes too. We brought our outside cats into the house in their own very large room that goes into our basement. But a couple of them long for the fresh air with freedom. We used to just let them in and out, but we got a dog that wants to play....but is a boxer so she likes to box and squish them. (Dog doesn't do that with the "inside" cats) So we can't let them anymore. We are think of building on of those. Of you have a spare window, and we do, you can get a window insert that has a cat door and they can go in and out.
Just let them out
What a genius build for the coup and design of the tunnels too.. crazy!
I love how your hen is following you inside the tunnel.
That’s great. We made a small chicken tunnel for ours but I love the way you’ve got it all around your garden. Love it!
I LOVE this idea with the tunnels around the garden. So many great reasons for it!!!! I will for sure try to do this in our garden.
I have had immense success fighting grasshoppers using guinea hens in combination with turkeys to patrol my garden and yards. Dont try too run guineas alone. They are impossible to manage that way. But when using turkeys, you can protect them from predators that typically strike during evening hours. The guineas dont want to be alone. When you herd the turkeys into the coop at night, the guineas will follow them in.
We have had problems with mink and dogs running amuck.
Good luck!
I had this idea about a Year and a half ago, to make tunnel runs around my garden... I never got aroubd to trying it so Thanks for making this video! This is awesome. Just motivated me to work on this!
Blessings.
Love this! Thanks for sharing, your furry and feathered babes look so loved.. and your garden. Obviously your love shines brightly.
Wow!!! Thank you so much for the tour. I think you have great set up. I would love to try something like this when I move to my property. Amazing!!!
I made sky bridges for my chickens. Heavy hardware cloth 1 1/2 ft wide then fastened wider hardware cloth over it to make a tunnel. I then arched the whole thing over shrubs and stumps to reach another chicken pen. Even the geese and rabbits used it. The rabbit ran back and forth just for fun. Pretty expensive to do these days but back then I could buy wire cloth wholesale.
OMG, awesome chicken tunnels!! Love it!
Love your videos,… “Watching from Kentucky “ The Bluegrass State . But me and my wife work 50 to 60 hours a week .
When we where younger we only did the regular 40 hours. My Grandma give us 4 chickens and they lived for a long time .
But we was deep in Kentucky out in the country at that time, and every Predator that was around was crazy about Chicken 🍗
Love your chicken tunnels and garden. I can see lots of work has paid off. Thanks for sharing
I love that your coop matches your top! Beautifully coordinated 😍
Very clever! Trimming the property uses resources and is a total drag, especially when it's hot...this is a great idea. Thanks! God bless.
great idea. I was hinking about doing the same to connect my run to the garden for weed control during the non-growing season.
What a gorgeous place you have there. It took a lot of TLC and love I am sure. Thanks for sharing...
Wow wow I been living this sutenebla way for 14 years.
This is one fantastic idea.
Well explained and simple.
Thanks from Peten Guatemala
I love the chicken tunnel!! Thank you for sharing your ideas!!
Nice that you're chickens get to free range safely. Great job...
Your husband is amazingly talented. Perfect coop. Love the color. Tunneling is brilliant. I think I am going to subscribe.
The chicken tunnel is so cool!
I have a small greenbelt that wraps around our property on a small hill. So, I can't see (if I'm looking out the window) if a four-legged predator is coming to get my chickens. They have a huge coop and run, but in the evening the sun shines right into the run. So, I'll give these "chunnels" a try. Hopefully they'll be protected from four-legged creatures and aerial predators too while in these chunnels. I like your set up!
Super great idea of tunnels!! ❤️🌹
What a terrific idea!
My blind barn cat adores our flock. This cat is the best hunter, twitches his ears and trianglates on his prey. No snakes or mice in our yard. Our rooster sleeps next to the cat. Craziest thing I've ever seen.
Nice looking happy chickens. Thanks for sharing 👍
Very good idea and the hens are helping earn their keep and provide a valuable service!!!
That's fantastic. Never thought of a "chicken tunnel". I need to think and see how I can make this work in my backyard. Thank you 💥💫🚀
very smart use of the chickens and garden!
Awesome!! Love this idea. My chickens would absolutely love this. Thanks for the inspiration!!
Chicken are such engaging creatures.
That is a wonderful garden and chicken tunnels!
I like you storage area in the coop
I've been thinking about doing something similar for years. Glad to have stumbled on your channel... Beautiful perennial garden!
Love it, I was planning to do something similar for our garden once the house is built.
Nice. I like the chicken tunnel idea. Thanks for sharing.
I’m doing’ a chicken tunnel!! Thanks for this! The ladies and rooster will love it.
I have the same system by accident! My next-door neighbor put up a fence about 30" from my existing fence. My hens found a gap in my fence and took to cruising up and down that space. I call it the Chicken Channel. I blocked off the open ends and made lazing areas for them. Bushes hide them and I put netting over the top. When they're in the Channel I know they're okay.
Many Thanks for the tour. Interesting and enjoyable. No chickens here but often considered them.
Tent pegs works for me, on my " oh I'll make a temp run here", also welded up a cage, 4x4x16 that has wheel barrow wheels on hinges, an a could of pipe handles, used chainlink, Google superstrut, it's used for running electrical in industrial building, lots of hardware available, it's cheap, also used it for a greenhouse, attach the covering with what's called " wiggle wire" here in Arizona wood get killed by the heat .
He did an amazing job!!
Those are very happy chickens
Pretty smart . I enjoyed watching this...
I am going to do this! What a fantastic idea. Thank you.
when I was a kid we always got 200 chick's on the farm every spring.. the chickens , ran freely on the farm. We let them out ofvthe chicken coop in the morning and shut them up at night. never had a problem.
You have a really nice set up for the birds. Thanks for sharing.
I love this idea.
Very clever ideas with the huge watering bucket and the tunnel with the dogs on the side of it! Thank you for this tour of your garden area!!
Would be clever if you put a roof that collected water.....
Nothing clever in this video
@@thenarrator1984An actual intelligent person would realise clever is subjective to one's own experience and knowledge. You are proof. STFU.
Very nice idea. Kudos to you and your husband for your determination and hard work. Enjoy gardening and those chickens!
Thankyou for this idea this is what im looking for GODBLESSED
Love the set up...really well thought
Great idea! You have solved a problem I have with giving my girls space to range while safely protected from foxes, and birds of prey! Thank you so much.
G’day Heath Savage. An overhead screen or chicken fence may well flummox a hawk or eagle, but a mink or weasel will go right on through. So would a snake to get to eggs or chicks. And, it takes a pretty sly chickenmaster to out fox a fox. Maybe a dog or two tethered close by? They’re a good alarm system.
Chickens, like rabbits, are at the bottom of the food chain. Ask your local dog, fox, or coyote.
Courtesy of Half Vast Flying
@@jackvoss5841 Thanks. I have a dog who guards the girls. and they would only be in the tunnels for a few hours per day. Their run and coop are very secure, with kick-boards all around, double meshing and gravel.
great coop set up, you've clearly thought that through.
What a brilliant idea! Thanks for sharing
Brilliantly!! done. You may have just started a revolutionary change in that industry.
What a brilliant idea. Thanks for sharing that. 🌟
It’s beautiful, great garden too!
This is amazing! Thank you!
Wow, that is really an ingenious setup. I like it👍
Love it.
Thanks for sharing.
What a great video. Loved it.
I know very little about chicken farming, but your tunnel/run seems to allow them a lot of opportunity to not feel cooped up. They seem happy and their help with weeds is great.
This is totally awesome I'm need to do this for my chickens this year 🥺🙏
Awsome idea. I'm going to do this for sure. Thanks
That's awesome. I like the chicken tunnel idea!
Thank you for your inspiration. I will implement your chicken tunnels in my garden! I love your idea ❤❤❤
That is so cool. Great idea. 👍👍👍❤️
This is so cool and efficient. You can probably make the route interesting too.
I enjoyed your video and I subscribed. Blessing and love from Helen in Ga.