A Moving Fertilizer Factory

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If full free-range is impractical, you can rig a fenced run at the front of the house and move both house and run when the soil under them is well tilled. Moving a run is a lot of work. Buried support poles must be pulled and freed from snaggly netting. The lower margins of the netting will be buried in sod, and hard to remove without pulling the netting all out of shape so it is near impossible to reset even at a new location.

For temporary runs, I use a dozen 3-inch-square rigid panels of modular pigpen. The panels are made from sturdy welded wire-mesh hog fence and have loops along the edges. You align loops along the edges of adjoining panels and run a long steel rod through interleaved loops to join them temporarily and also anchor them into the soil. You can turn corners or run straight at each joint. Made from galvanized steel, a set of hog panels will last for years. Four- or eight-panel squares, rectangles, or circles will stand upright and serve to graze or hold small stock of all kinds: puppies, lambs, piglets, new calves, hobbled colts, and small children. They're also good to support garden vines such as semi-tall peas, or rig them in triangles as tomato cages.

If the birds decide to fly out of the run, clip the flight feathers of one wing. In a few short weeks, you'll have combined a power fertilizer with a pest-control system, and created a conversation piece for the neighbors in the bargain.

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