MAKING YOUR LANDSCAPING CHICKEN SCRATCH PROOF!

We finished a majority of the landscaping around the homestead this week after our return from the hospital. Kaleb is recovering well and I thought I needed to get caught up on some projects.

WHAT IS LANDSCAPING?

Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including:
• living elements,
• natural elements
• abstract elements
Landscaping requires expertise in horticulture and artistic design.
-WIKIPEDIA

First you will notice that we went ahead and put a skirting around the home a few weeks before. Manufactured homes get a bad rep from the cheap aluminum skirting that you often see around them. Jaimie wanted something different and we finally decided on a design she put together from some ideas she saw on Pinterest. I think it turned out really well.

@hansjurgen then came up with the framing ideas of how to attach the design to the house. He worked on it a little every day until it was finished. It turned out awesome! We can now mulch around the sides to hide the bottoms of the steel and wood skirt.

Then it was time to add some landscaping around the home. So Tim and I went to a nearby creek and loaded up the pickup with some choice rocks and brought them back to layout for the plants that would be in the front.

CHICKEN WARNING

Now you have to keep in mind that chickens will destroy landscaping. And we let our happy chickens roam free to eat bugs and enjoy the day. But we have come up with a neat way to deter them birds from digging everything up. They will scratch and scratch, but a little chicken wire laid over the top of your much will send them looking for better hunting grounds. We simply used some tent stakes painted black to match the mulch to hold the fencing down in a few places and a second layer of rocks to hold it down around the edges.

Then apply a little mulch on top to cover and you're finished. The chickens won't touch it.

Here is the process.

Lay out your work area with cardboard. That will kill any unwanted plants from competing with your desired plants. Also, be sure to pick plants that your animals won't eat. We have sheep on the homestead that roam around. They won't eat these elephant ears/taro plants.

Next, place a layer of rocks around the border of the cardboard area. Your canvas is now ready for your masterpiece.

Now you will fill your cardboard up with your mulch. We actually added 2 layers. The first layer being straw that will break down over the cardboard and provide excellent soil in the years to come. Then we topped off with our landscaping mulch. If you look close in the picture, you can see the straw bits under the mulch. Go heavy with the mulch. You don't want any of the cardboard to be showing.

Now comes the chicken deterrent.

You will want to find the rubber coated chicken wired from your local hardware store. This will allow the wire to last longer in the elements. It comes in black so it will match well with the mulch. Ours is a recycled wire that came from an old chicken barn. Our area is filled with lots of Tyson chicken barns and they get torn down quite often and you can buy the recycled materials cheap.

Cut and lay out your wire to fit around your plants. Cover your entire area and allow your wire to overlap about half of your border rocks. Your second layer of rocks will hold down the wire around the edges.

Leave holes in your wire big enough for your plants to get bigger and grow. This will take a bit of measurements and planning to lay it all out correctly. You want large pieces of wire so maybe cut the wire to lay around the plants.

Look at all that wire! The chickens won't be happy at all.

If areas of your wire tend to stick up, some cheap chinamart tent stakes painted to match will help keep it down.

Finally you just need to put a thin layer of mulch over the top of your wire and the look will be complete. You now have chicken proof landscaping! Great job!

Here are some additional photos of some additional landscaping that @hansjurgen is working on around his house next door. He is using some thick cardboard paper from split open feed sacks for his bottom layer.

Notice the cut of the wire to fit all around the paver stones. He is also using some cheap tent stakes to hold the wire down in a few places.

Now the wire is ready for a second layer of rocks and top mulch.

So now, what's stopping you from having chickens and putting up nice landscaping? No excuses. Get to work on making your homestead a beautiful place to work, live and play!

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