Can Chickens Till a Garden?

Exactly one month ago, I placed 15 hens into the garden area in an experiment to see if they would work up the soil, root up the weeds and fertilize the garden.  Here we are one month later and I want to report on the progress.  First, here is a photo of the garden one month ago.  It is overgrown with weeds.  It was way too wet to even think about tilling or using a shovel to turn the soil over.  So I thought, I wonder what chickens would do in the garden?

Before Chickens - One month ago

One month later, I put the hens back over the fence and into the pasture.  So what do you think?  Did they work up the soil in the garden? No.  Did they root up the weeds? Well, sort of.  I'll give them a mixed review here.  As you can see, there are a lot fewer weeds in the garden.  Some were eaten and some were scratched up.  Did they fertilize the garden?  Most definitely.  15 chickens in the garden for one month added a lot of poop that will be incorporated into the soil and will provide nitrogen to help the garden grow.

Will I use chickens as a garden prep tool again?  Probably so.  I think next time I'll put double the number of birds in the garden and see if that makes a difference in weed eradication.

Many things we do are trial and error.  Some things work.  Some things fail miserably.  Often we tweak the process and try again later.  Stay tuned next year as we attempt to perfect our process in using chickens to prep our garden area for planting.