Chickens and Vermiculite

jdwheeler42 3/11/2015, 12:43 pm

I see a lot of you have chickens out there, I was wondering, does anyone else have problems with the chickens picking out the vermiculite from Mel's Mix? I figure I'll have to build sturdy 4x4 chicken-wire fences to keep them out, unless someone else has any bright ideas.

happycamper 3/11/2015, 3:22 pm

Yes! My chickens are allowed in the garden during winter/early spring, and three of my beds look like they have almost no vermiculite. I purchased a bag of perlite last week to add to those beds that are lacking now. There is a visable difference between the garden beds.

The beds with overwintering onions, garlic and kale are never disturbed but the empty beds seem to be the ones that were stripped. As a side note, I usually cover the beds with plastic for winter and I did not this year. I figured that I failed to protect the boxes from the chickens AND weed seeds blowing in.

My beds are 12" tall and a few of them have short (dollar store) fencing panels placed on the inside edge that I use for pea/bean/ plant containment and that helps to keep the chickens out of them.


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Chickens and Vermiculite

Chickens and Vermiculite

Re: Chickens and Vermiculite