Subject: Re: chicken compaction

From: Mark Ludwig <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 27 Jan 1997 20:14:40 -0600

>>Actually, I was talking to a biodynamic market gardener yesterday.  He said
>>that the ckickens are great to fertilise the soil, but do massive damage to
>>the soil structure.  They tend to compact the soil, they dig up the roots,
>etc.
>>
Mark Says, whether that's true depends.....
Chickens cause this kind of dammage by compacting the soil through excessive
turning and vegitation eating and their high N dung burning soil humas up.
A given soil/vegitative cover will tolerate differant ammounts of bird
presure depending on factors like soil biological activity, soil type (clay,
loam, sand) and water or nutrient status.  Note also the previous post where
other creatures get worked into the grazing mix, their manure and habbits
may fit some soils better.  With all these garden systems, remember that old
saying about the farmers footsteps being the best fertilizer; this is the
quaint way of pointing to the key role your management play's in making your
system work. 
Mark

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 09:20:11 -0500 (EST)

>quaint way of pointing to the key role your management play's in making your

Mark:

This is not a problem in deep mulch.  I can't imagine why someone would use
it in any other situation since deep mulch provides  virtually unlimited free
food (worms and other invertebrates) for chickens.

For Mother Earth, Dan Hemenway, Yankee Permaculture Publications (since
1982), Elfin Permaculture workshops, lectures, Permaculture Design Courses,
consulting and permaculture designs (since 1981), and now correspondence
permaculture training by email. Copyright, 1996, Dan & Cynthia Hemenway, P.O.
Box 2052, Ocala FL 34478 USA  [email-masked]  

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