“I created quite a stir in the chicken run today - it was time to build the residents a herbatorium.
This is an idea that I must have read about somewhere in the permaculture literature, I just can’t remember where, so I don’t know who to credit.
As most of you would know, chickens left to their own devices, will reduce a lush green chicken run to the Kalahari in a relatively short space of time.
With the herbatorium (as I grandiosely call it), green feed such as comfrey can be safely grown under a metal grid and the chickens can nibble at the leaves that grow through the mesh, without being able to scratch up the plant itself.
All that was involved was to dig up some ground in the run, build a small square of bricks (two high) and lay a metal grid of chicken wire on top. I used bamboo to peg the bricks so that they wouldn’t come away from under the grid.
Comfrey was planted and I also threw in a few seeds (lucerne, cow pea & pigeon pea) which I hope will also take.
The following thumbnails show the ‘highlights’ of setting up the herbatorium this afternoon. It will be a good lesson in delayed gratification for the girls, as it will be a few weeks before the first leaves start pushing up near the mesh.”
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