Can a goat and some hens clear an overgrown allotment?

Daftanian

If you do decide to get chickens, please consider ex battery hens. I cannot begin to say how much enjoyment (and eggs) they have provided me.

RacyRed

Wow! Thank you all, I'm so glad I asked about this, there are so many good suggestions and ideas here.

Mojisola, Redsam and Daftanian, the allotment is only a few minutes walk from home so I'm hoping to spend a good bit of time among the chooks, keeping them fed and watered will not be a problem. I grew up with chooks and absolutely adore them. I'm planning a mix of rescued battery hens and some bred by my neighbour from her rescued battery hens I love the idea of converting a garden shed, but also think the portable arks are a serious consideration. Using one of them would help me keep the chooks away from the immature fruit trees. Janejustjane, I think I know the triangular type you mentioned.

As for goats, Sairy there are some on the allotments so I'll ask around and see what their owners experience of keeping them here is, but I am reconsidering that idea now. I'd want my goats to be happy.

Redsam, bees! Now there's a good idea! That would work really well with fruit trees and chooks!

redsam

i have bees at home!

RacyRed

redsam wrote: »

i have bees at home!

Do you find them easy to care for?

Yorkie1

Please consider not using carpet. As it rots down it can leach chemical toxins into the soil; it can fall to bits over time, meaning difficult clearance; or weeds will grow through it, leaving you with a bad back in trying to lift it. Disposing of manky carpet after a couple of years is not a pleasant prospect. Also, will the hens and goat eat it?

It is banned on many allotment sites these days, for good reason. Others have suggested cardboard - this is a good idea.

RacyRed

Yorkie1 wrote: »

Please consider not using carpet. As it rots down it can leach chemical toxins into the soil; it can fall to bits over time, meaning difficult clearance; or weeds will grow through it, leaving you with a bad back in trying to lift it. Disposing of manky carpet after a couple of years is not a pleasant prospect. Also, will the hens and goat eat it?

It is banned on many allotment sites these days, for good reason. Others have suggested cardboard - this is a good idea.

Good point!

I'd intended to use carpet for a year only for weed supression, and before putting the chooks onto the plot.

But I've abandoned that idea now in favour of Mojisola's excellent suggestion of strimming the weeds down regularly and keeping the variety of plants for the chooks to peck about in. I'd use cardboard or membrane and bricks around the trees to keep the weeds down, protect the saplings from the chooks.

This has been a real help, thank you all! I'm hoping to be able to choose my patch from the ones available next week so will be bearing all of this in mind when looking at them.

I'm getting so excited about it now! Can't wait to get going.

redsam

RacyRed wrote: »

Do you find them easy to care for?

yes - its like gardening you can do lots and lots of fussing or you can be sensible and do little and often. We did a 3 day course held by our local bee keeping Association, £50 and info, chats, demos lots, well worth it. But i is very useful to get some books and read lots on the internet as like gardening there are lots of ideas and theory. BUT the main thing, make sure you can deal with the varoa mite (use icing suagr), feed them in winter and dont annoy them!

we have ours in the garden and you wouldnt know there were there. We were lucky and given the beehive, but its not cheap if you are going to buy and beehive and the stuff BUT it can be done more organicaly and MUCH cheaper (which we are going to do on the allotment) buy building an organic beehive a TOP BAR BEEHIVE, instructions can be found on http://www.biobees.com/index.php on one of the pages is instructions how to build the top bar hive...

Not only will you eventualy get honey but they pollinate the flowers, fruit trees and veg and having bees in urban areas is great as there is lots of diverse plants for them to choose from.

top tips -

• get marrigold gloves that fit your hand properly, no need to buy expensive gloves
• get a white boiler suit that you can add elastic to wrists and ankles and velcrow around the neck much cheaper than 'bee suits'
• enjoy it and dont panic, but put some money aside to buy a queen and small brood ( ours found it us but that was sheer luck!)

zarazara

Pigs would do a great job of rooting and digging.

ScratchandSniff-->[X]

RacyRed wrote: »

Hi,

It is council, but they do allow livestock in our area. Some of the allotments are used for stables/paddocks even. I asked when I enquired, as keeping chickens and growing fruit are what I want to do with it, and was told it was not a problem as long as anything kept is secure and not causing a nuisance.

It would still be worthwhile checking about specific types of livestock. Those allotments that permit it, generally allow "fur and feathers" e.g. poultry, waterfowl, caged birds, rabbits etc. Keeping other animals, in particular the goats and pigs mentioned has specific requirements such as registering with DEFRA as CPH numbers, movement and other documents, standstill requirements, ear tagging etc. Have a look at the relevant DEFRA pages for starters if you want to go down this route. For more specific queries relating to the plot and your plans, the Animal Health Officer at your Council will be able to help.

It's well worth it, but recovering an allotment requires lots of time and effort (years) - it's not like on the telly where there's probably a whole team of folk doing the work for them and where people fall over themselves to give freebies to get their name/face on the box. This is regardless of which methods you choose, and for animals it's not just a case of plopping them on there and coming back in a few months to find it all magically transformed. Keeping it running also requires significant time.

Water is less of an issue for chickens than it will be for the larger animals. We don't have running water on ours, but collect it, being careful to keep if free from algae etc. As for the combination of trees and animals you'll certainly need to protect them from ring-barking them or digging their roots. If you want a cheap run for the poultry, then try some site fencing used on building sites and sometimes called Harris fencing. After repairs to any wombled panels they can be cable tied together in a square with a coop inside and a top net thrown over. They're very light to move around a plot and easily dug in to deter burrowing foxes etc.

redsam

an allotment can take time but i disagree that i takes years, the 1st year is always the hardest especialy if the plot is over grown. The site where I am the whole site was overgrown brambles, trees and more, most people after the 1st year have turned thier plots into something great. My plot was 8ft brambles and reeds and hadnt been used for 10years or more and at 23ft wide and 150+ft long its not without weeds and the odd bramble sneeking in but the effort was worth it.

If you can afford it get an electric fence and an energise that is proven to be fox proof (mole valley farmers) we have had our for 2 years and only lost the chooks to natural causes than predators and its easier to move around rather than diggin in fence panels.