Making a Chicken Pasture - Start to Finish

So I'm down here in the chicken run right now, and this is the well the chicken yard I call it because it's not enclosed. It's just a fenced-in area for them to roam and The project today is to turn this into a pasture for the chickens All right, so we're starting at the entry here is the gate and yeah you walk in here And we have our compost areas here, and this is the whole overview of it Now this is kind of a messed-up area right now a lot of the gravel from What the hen house is built on a lot of that came down here? I think the chickens like rested it out a lot, and there's a lot of wood chips There's a lot of debris, so I'll just show you what we're dealing with here But yeah, you can see a lot of gravel rocks. There's a lot of trash The previous owner of this place used this whole kind of area down here I was actually like kind of a trash storage lots of dump area rocks that I stored in here before we Designated this as a chicken area tons of gravel more rocks branches So got to clean it up first thing I'm gonna do is just get all the junk out of here that could take a while, but Got some tools to help with that. Let's see I've got Decent little rake here This thing's cool. It expands out So it expands like this loosen that up and then open it and then click it on It's adjustable Then I've got my flat shovel And a broom maybe I'll end up sweeping up some of this gravel, so we'll see how it works out All right, so we got this thing cleared out got most of the debris and junk and just loose gravel and everything cleaned out of here So let me show you that next Before we see that we're gonna tour over here real quick. So yeah, this whole zone is gonna be a different pasture We're gonna have two. I think I've shown you this in previous videos, but there's gonna be Dueling pastures here. So let me show you the most recent project I did Just a few days ago in the meantime was putting in this secondary gate So I've got this secondary gate. And so what we're gonna do There's the entry to the coop Right. Now the chickens are gonna be stuck in this one, which still has a little bit of grass left over from the winter rains but they'll be stuck in here in the meantime and As this one gets online and we get some pasture coming up here then we will change it and let them all out here and close off the other one here and Start a new pasture on this side so we can rotate them back and forth and hopefully have pasture raised Chickens pasture eggs year-round that would be awesome. That's the goal here So here's the what we're working with here Just basically raked Shoveled and broomed away all the debris. There's a ton of gravel, but this is pretty hard dirt you can see really hard dirt compacted But there's also a little bit of sand leftover There's just a little bit of gravel in some spots. Let me show you just a little bit of gravel here I don't think it's a big deal There's this kind of Divot area it drops down a little So we'll see if that makes a difference and then over here, it's a little bumpy and rough but somewhat of a divot But it's also been filled in with some of this loose material, which is a lot of the hemp shavings a little bit of gravel so anyways, it's Goals here is not to spend too much time and effort on this thing Because just well don't have time and effort available and I got to move on to other things But it was a big headache getting all the junk out. We just basically Shoveled it and raked it down this way kind of did these no man's land This is the edge of this of our property behind these Shrubs and hedge here is the end of our land. So got all that stuff scraped down and this is it from a distance So next I'm going to rake it all try and loosen it up a little and then we'll end up soaking it overnight So that's all set for now. Next thing I'm gonna do is water it It's like 530 right now, so it'll be getting dark in a little bit So I'm gonna water it really good right now a couple different times Let it soak overnight and stay damp and then in the morning broadcast the seeds out All right. So last night I gave it a good soak and then another soak right before dark and Got the soil saturated. So hopefully that'll help with germination and then just now I gave it another little soak and Now I'm gonna sow the seeds here So I did notice that as I soaked it some puddles form some runoff form So right there you can see it that runs down there and it You can't see it here because I didn't soak it really but a little it would form here as well So I got to be careful here with the watering and the runoff that I don't just wash away a lot of the seeds So with that all in mind now, I'm gonna go ahead and broadcast the seeds out All right, so here we go I got my bag of seed mix here It's one pound. It was six bucks. I got it from my local feed seed and feed store And they called this like their fodder blend or something. I forgot exactly what it was called. But yeah, it's a blend It's gonna be different little grasses and grains and stuff like that. And it's for animals to eat. So, here we go all right, so I got that whole bag spread out and Broadcast it out throughout the pasture here and they're just kind of sitting on the surface Hopefully that's not a problem for germination. But now I'm gonna go ahead and lightly water them and That will be it All right. So we got those watered in now I'm just gonna keep watering these each day until they sprout maybe twice a day and we'll be back here when they sprout I'll see you then So there's some kind of a little bit leafy stuff coming up right over here and there's grass mixed in there I don't know if that's The seeds I sowed or you know what but there's some leafy stuff and some grass and then Over here. This area seems to be doing pretty good. Also, let's see if we can get zoomed on a little bit But let's see see that little bit of grass there So there's a little grass coming up. That's probably from the seeds I would imagine and then there's some other stuff now that was a blend so I don't even really know what I'm looking for There's some more greens coming up. So anyways, yeah, we're getting definitely some stuff coming up. There's some more This area seems to be doing really good because it has a lot of that hemp shaving in it But anyways, just an update there. We do have some stuff starting to come up on day 11. So We will see how it goes from here All right. So we are now at week either five or six from the initial spreading of the seeds Had footage updates along the way, but not sure what happened and we lost the footage So, let me show you where we're at now. So yeah, this is about five or six week I forgot exactly how far and we've got a pretty good little pasture here it didn't do well on the sides like you can see it's a patch mainly in the middle and then over there and Not so much where I'm standing and up the side and borders So I'm not sure why There's a variety of things that have come up I'm not sure what everything is because I don't even know what was in the blend that we got But that's definitely from the blend That is probably the same thing. That's a weed That with the purple flowers is a weed. So there is some weeds that came up. There's also some Tomato plants that came up on their own right there. We got a tomato So maybe I'll transplant that but overall it's pretty good. Maybe next time I would stick with something That's not much of a blend and just a single grain crop But overall this looks pretty cool and it was a good experience to see how this works I've been just basically watering it just about every day. So yeah overall Pretty satisfied with how this worked out. It's cool to see this come up and kind of learn from the experience Now I'm gonna let the hens out and see how they like it Yep, they're excited. They haven't been in here in yeah about six weeks. So They're very excited. She's going to town on that plant. Whatever that is with the broader leaves. She's going for it all grass everything So wow, they definitely like this and they are just going to town. So they seem pretty darn happy Of course, this one's scratching in the wood chips. Like come on. There's a brand new pasture go eat that So, yep, they're going to town on this. They're loving it. They're spreading out looking for the greenest greens, so I'd say this is This is a success Thanks for stopping by today. Make sure to subscribe if you're not already Drop us a thumbs up and please comment on the video and we will see you next time