The Chickshaw

Building soil and community with chickens on pasture.

The Chickshaw - I wish I could say I thought of the name, but that was homestead farmer and all around great guy Justin Rhodes. His plans are online and that’s what we modeled our design off of.

When we considered how to expand our flock this year, we knew we were limited in space in our chicken composting run. However, we had permission from the city and a private owner to use the meadow next to the main garden as long as we maintain it. We leave most of the work to the chickens and they seem pretty happy about it.

Why a mobile coop? Well, if you leave enough chickens on any piece of ground long enough you can be sure that they’ll scratch it down to a bare patch of earth. After that happens, no plants are using the fertility they’re depositing through their droppings. What would be fertility then becomes a waste problem.

The mobile chicken coup allows for the birds to move around the meadow, ensuring that they are always on fresh pasture, with their choice of fresh greens and bugs. They eat and scratch back the meadow, fertilizing as they go. The coup is moved around each day just a few feet so their droppings fall through the steel mesh floor onto a new spot of the meadow. After a week or so we move the fence to a new spot in the meadow, wheel in the chickens, open the door, and off they go.

Our main motivation for having a flock of chickens is that we want to eat fresh, delicious eggs, and we would also like to produce something of immense value for our little community around the farm. Unlike kale, eggs are easy to sell because most people eat them just about every day in some form or another.

The price of eggs, like just about everything, went up this year. Or rather, more accurately, the value of our money decreased. We keep strict records of amount of chickens, how much feed, and how many eggs they give us each day. The price we pay per pound for the grain and non-GMO organic feed has more than doubled in the last year.

We raised our prices to reflect this, however, we’ve managed to keep our margins high by tapping into local waste streams. I can’t go into details here because of the absurdity of regulations, but a huge plus for farming in the city is the availability of food and yard “waste”. For how we turn leaves, grass, and manure into high protein, free, chicken feed, check out this previous post.

Dad was in town a few weeks back and helped me out on what was supposed to be a one day project that turned into three.

If I were to do it over, I’d consider ripping some boards for smaller dimensions of lumber. The Chickshaw is sturdy, but heavy. I also didn’t consider the weight of 50 chickens. The dimensions are 2x2 meters (6x6 feet). It might seem tight but we could probably have 60 without any problems. Remember, they only sleep there.

Security is a must for any chicken operation. Chickens are helpless against foxes or weasels. Don’t take any chances. It might seem complicated but the system below is very simple. I went with a neighbor, Saša, to the dump. He knows a thing or two about batteries and electric systems. He brought a voltmeter and a thick copper wire. We found a Mercedes battery that showed a decent charge. Saša touched the copper wire to the negative, turned to me with a grin, and said, “I guess we’ll find out how strong it really is.” Then braced himself and touched the positive terminal. There was an enormous spark and a chuck of each terminal blew off. Apparently, it has some life in it.

The young guy who runs the dump seemed suspicious when we first arrived and asked to rummage around. Rightfully so, because in the insanity of our modern society, it’s illegal to buy certain “wastes” from a dump. This doesn’t grow the economy. And if the economy doesn’t grow, and keep growing forever, then that’s a bad thing.

The dump guy hung around in his black t-shirt with “Cocaine” written in cursive as we tested each battery and sparked up a conversation. I told him about the farm and how we need a battery to keep the chickens safe. By the time we made our way to the cobbled-together-shack that posed as the front desk, he was offering me half off the price per kilo with the agreement that next time I come I bring some eggs.

I was thrilled because it meant I could add one more item to the list of things and services we’ve bought with eggs. A not-at-all complete list includes: a tetanus shot, accountant for taxes, lumber, oil change, wood-chips, haircut, hay, firewood, saw-dust, and many hours of labor.

As we walked up to the shack to pay, I noticed an old man throwing some metal cabinets into a container. I walked over and asked if I could take one. He was very happy his old cabinet would live on. It makes the perfect rain-proof, secure box to house the battery.

One our farm students, Vitek, had some experience with fencing in sheep and helped me get everything setup. A 20 watt solar panel keeps the battery charged in the field. Solar panel, battery, and shock box, connected to the charge controller. The shock box is homemade by an old gentleman in northern Czech. One outlet goes to the grounding line, a piece of rebar in the ground, the other wire is wrapped around the electric fence sending a pulse of electricity that is uncomfortable, but not harmful.

As with any project, there are always some modifications needed once you see how it actually works. It quickly became obvious that 3 laying boxes wasn’t enough so I put my Uncle Tom to work when he was here in Prague installing a bottom row of boxes for the hens to lay their eggs.

It might seem obvious but it’s a good idea to be able to access the eggs from the outside of the coop. I’ve arranged a plank that blocks the boxes from the inside. Once I take eggs in the late afternoon (chickens only lay between the hours of 8-5), I put up the bar so they can’t sleep in the boxes. Chickens poop a lot when they sleep. The bar, in combination with the wood-shavings means we always have clean eggs.

A quick note on storing eggs. Fresh, clean eggs don’t need to be refrigerated and will stay just fine for over a month at room temperature. Once you wash and egg, you destroy the membrane that protects the yoke and then they must be refrigerated so they don’t go bad and you don’t end up hugging a toilet for an evening. The only reason eggs are washed is because the chickens aren’t in clean conditions and only large factory producers can afford the machinery to wash and refrigerate them. Corporations write the laws of the regulatory agencies (they’re often the same people), so they’re designed to eliminate the competition, which means small farmers. We can change this by simply buying directly from small farms.

The fifty or so chickens that inhabit the chickshaw are from an egg factory. They spent the first 15 months of their lives in a cage the size of a piece of paper. Within a week they were happily bopping around the meadow, eating bugs, grass, and grains.

Ecosystems thrive on disturbance. As long as they don’t stay in one place for too long, the scratching, pecking, and depositing of the chickens builds soil and increases the diverity of plant species. This meadow was trending towards a jungle of bindweed, blackberries, and sting nettles. A few years of consistent cutting from us, mostly by scythe, and the chickens for a few months, and we can see grasses begin to dominate, with wildflowers popping up here and there.

The chickens cleared a patch of the meadow in 2 weeks almost down to the soil layer. A few young lads came last week for a three day internship and created three “no-dig” beds of beans, corn, and pumpkins - otherwise known as" “the three sisters”, a Native American growing pattern. (Thanks Sam and Tom!) This patch has a weeks head start on any weeds and is nicely fertilized from the chickens droppings. The best part is that by doing what they love to do, what they are made to do, the chickens help us with our goal of growing lots of quality food for ourselves and our community.

So there you have it. The Chickshaw and the chickens who inhabit it. They produce our own money, that if we choose can be traded for the paper version, they build soil and improve the meadow, they clear and fertilize ground for crops, and perhaps best of all we’ve got the most entertaining drama playing all day, year round. Great for the whole family.