[Bodger]

This last week or so, the leaves on our trees have very quickly started to drop in profusion. Until the rain starts later today, nows the time to get raking up dry leaves and putting them into bags. They are one of the best things to put in the bottom of your chicken pens for them to scratch in. They will find loads of crawlies to eat amongst the leaves and are also said to deter fleas and lice etc on your birds.

[compostqueen]

oh good. Ta for the tip.. I was going to invest in a mountain of chippings but if leaves will suffice I'll go with those.  We get tonnes of leaves as our neighbour has the biggest trees  :shock:  They're starting to fall in big quantities now, although we do get quite a lot of leaf fall all year after a bit of a breeze. If we go away for a few days they're piled up against the back door. We daren't go away for a fortnight or we'd not find the house when we got back  

[Kate and her Ducks]

What a good tip, thanks.

[Bodger]

The leaves to be in a shed or a pen that you can keep nice and dry. The chickens will get a lot of exercise and enjoyment by scratching in them.

In the old days, cottagers would also collect dry bracken for bedding their animals down on, but with the talk of a connection between it and cancer, perhaps this is not such a good idea anymore. We've been burning loads of the stuff over the weekend. I'm not sure about which stage of the plants growth is supposed to be dangerous, but I know its a nuisance with it forever encroaching on the fields. Animals that eat it run the risk of going blind.

[Knight Family]

Good Idea, most of our leaves falls directly into the chicken area, so will save work moving them!

Must admit the girls love the work of scatching in and it saves me green bin or leaf mould compost bins getting to full!

[poultrygeist]

I swept mine into a pile yesterday.  It was very satisfying. I'll maybe barrow it round to the chicken run later. We stored them last year in the empty greenhouse which dried them beautifully.

I'll just cover them with plastic this year methinks. There must be a few cubic meters yet to fall, so lucky hens !  

I read a while ago about bracken being used as litter and did wonder about the health implications.

Rob

[Bodger]

Yeah Rob, like I say, I'm not sure on that last one.

[poultrygeist]

It's academic for me because we don't have any bracken but leaves we have in abundance !  

We've never had our own trees before so it's nice to know I'm sweeping our own mess rather than every blighter else's.  :?

Rob

[chickenlady]

We have tons of leaves on our lawn and the other day I spent ages raking them all into a pile! the minute my back was turned the girls had spread them all over again :?  :roll:  Anik-hen did the same thing with the bag i use for clearing out the poop! it wa all over the garden in no time :roll: