I'm afraid our chicken pasture contest is a bit of a wash.  As the weeds grow taller and taller and our pudgy chickens become slower and slower, it's becoming clear that there will be no scratching the earth bare at this rate.  Our Dark Cornish chickens don't seem to be as avid foragers as I'd hoped they'd be, although they do like picking through the huge mound of weeds I keep wheelbarrowing into their pasture.

What you all probably care about the most is --- who wins?!  I've decided to name Bethany our grand prize winner since she picked the furthest away date which is closest to infinity.  Bethany, drop me an email with your address and your onions and flowers will be in the mail next week.

The more scientific among you may be asking --- what now?  I still want to have the chickens scratch up some of the earth to expedite grain planting, so we're going to subdivide their current pasture in hopes that a smaller enclosure will actually get scratched bare.  Given the proximity of butchering day, we may wait to build more pastures until next year, and will be rethinking our broiler experiment --- maybe we'd be better off having the slow, fat broilers in tractors and our perky layers achieving self sufficiency on pasture?  Stay tuned for future experimentation!

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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.



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