[ChristyRose]

Is it okay to keep chickens on the same piece of ground without moving them around to new ground?  Does their poo eventually make the soil bad -i.e.  infections etc?  Mine have been in one part of the garden for 3 years now and have eaten it bare and worry that they might get infected from being on the same ground for so long.  Am I worrying over nothing?

[Sassy]

The ground can get infected and become unpleasant. In the first instance you should worm your chooks regularly with Flubenvet. There are treatments you can buy to cleanse the ground, I don't know how good they are. There is a way of liming the ground but I think you need to remove them from the area for a while. You could search for posts explaning how to do this. Can you put them in another part of the garden while you cleanup/repair and rest the area they are in now? You could then keep swopping them around before the land gets so bad.

[Lewjam]

Also if you dig over the ground well (to a spades depth) it will turn over all the muck and let the worms get at it.  (Plus the chooks will go mad scratching around in the newly turned over soil!)

[bygrace]

As a matter of interest, what's the longest anyone has kept chooks on a piece of ground and the grass has recovered on moving them?

Mine have been in situ in a covered run for just over 3 months, with miscanthus on the ground. Is that likely to be beyond recovery?

Thanks. BG

[Lewjam]

if you move them and chuck grass seed down (very cheap), the ground is that fertile that within a month or two it will be back strong.

Its likely though that after three months the grass you had is pretty done for!

Lew