How can I make my flock friendlier to the environment?
Opting out of industrial agriculture and keeping your own chickens is an environmentally friendly choice already, so a lot of choices you make about your flock, such as which breeds to keep, are neutral from an environmental perspective. However, other choices can help your little farm be as green as possible.
Sustainable Chicken Farming
Gardening. One of the easiest ways to make a chicken coop environmentally friendly is to combine it with a vegetable garden. Chickens produce high-quality, nitrogen-rich, nontoxic, free fertilizer, so you can repurpose their waste to replace some of the chemicals used in gardening. Chicken manure is high in nitrogen, so compost it thoroughly with organic material, such as leaves or hay, before spreading it on your active garden. Or, spread fresh manure on your off-season garden. Because of its high nitrogen content, you won’t need to spread it as thickly as you do other manure-based fertilizers. Research how much nitrogen your plants need before you get too heavy-handed; some common garden plants can easily overdose on nitrogen, and all of your plants will perish from receiving too much nitrogen at once.
Chickens are all-natural pest eaters and weed killers, so they’ll be more than happy to rid your garden of unwanted interlopers. However, they’ll munch beneficial worms and ladybugs as readily as problematic grasshoppers and flies, and they’d much rather eat ripe tomatoes than the weeds surrounding them. Manage your chickens to ensure their presence is as beneficial as possible. Ways to do this include using fencing and supervising the chickens’ time in the garden so they’re never among the ripest, most tempting plants. If you decide not to let the birds into the garden, they can still munch on picked weeds.
Even with these challenges, using chickens in the garden is generally more environmentally friendly than using chemical pesticides, weedkillers, and fertilizers, which can generate toxic runoff.
Reusing materials. This can start even before you get your flock if you build a coop out of salvaged wood scraps. I’ve had a lot of luck asking local businesses for old pallets or other scrap wood; they often have no other use for them and are happy to give them away.
Once you’ve built your coop, don’t throw away the leftover wood, chicken wire, or hardware cloth. All of this will come in handy down the line as you need to repair the coop and surrounding fencing.
For treats, cover leftover cardboard tubes from toilet paper or paper towels with peanut butter and seeds. If your birds can’t free-range, use scrap wood to build them a “jungle gym” to climb and explore for extra exercise and enrichment. Some keepers have even found their birds love to peck at old toy xylophones, so you never know what might entertain your flock! Just make sure anything you leave in the coop or run doesn’t have toxic paints or tiny parts the birds might dislodge or swallow. If you’re unsure about this, skip the DIY.
Another great place to reuse materials is in creating predator deterrents. Hang old CDs, broken mirrors, and shiny ribbons out of your birds’ reach to serve as deterrents for birds of prey.
Reducing waste. For all the good reusing does for the planet, it’s best to reduce the amount of waste you generate in the first place. In winter, lower your supplemental-heating requirements with a well-insulated coop; a thorough inspection in fall can identify drafty places, which you can plug up with wood scraps or rags. Ventilation openings are important, but they shouldn’t let in frigid breezes. In summer, make sure your coop is well-ventilated.
Food is another source of waste in most households. Your chickens will be thrilled to help you solve this problem! While you should never feed your flock some human foods, such as alliums, citrus, caffeine, and alcohol, they’ll love meat from leftover bones and fish guts. Don’t feed them anything that’s highly processed, sugary, salted, or spiced. And remember, most of their nutrition should come from foraging and an appropriate feed.
Keeping chickens is a great way to make the planet a better place to live, and following these suggestions can make it even more impactful.
