Can Chickens be Used to Kill Grass?

I’m wanting to clear out a section of my lawn for a garden. I’m guessing it’s just typical lawn grass. However, I’m trying to avoid using glyphosate and other herbicides to kill the grass. I’ve also considered a sod cutter, but it’s a lot of work and hard to transport. Would it be possible to use chickens instead to kill the grass?

Will chickens actually kill grass or will it grow back after they are moved from a certain spot?

They will kill it if the numbers are right. All depends on how many chickens, how much area, how long they are there, how long your growing season, how much precipitation, etc.

If you fence off a small section at a time and sprinkle pellets, wheat or other grains on the ground, it will give them a good reason to scratch around.

You might also wish to dig a few holes to help them get started scratching around.

A couple of buckets of arborist's mulch will attract insects, worms and fungi that the chickens will also enjoy scratching through and improve your soil biology.

We regularly rake out the soil from our chicken run and top up with mulch, the girls go crazy scratching through the piles and spread it through their area.

Left on the area long enough, I believe chickens would do the job nicely.

Echoing what Megan has already stated, consider putting down a thick layer of wood chip. Chickens love to dig in wood chip and they eventually automatically turn towards it when let out to pasture. It'll help block off light to the grass while the chickens aren't working on that particular spot.

Hi Ryan,
Based on my experience I would only use chickens to start to kill grass. While they can get it down to bare dirt... generally by the time it gets there, it is usually very matted down, covered in manure, and a scorched earth/hard pan kind of think. I made some gardens the exact size of my movable electronet. One I left till it was bare dirt. It worked, but I don't feel that it was healthy for the chickens or the soil.

On the second garden, I left them only for a couple of days. They knocked down 98% of some grass/weeds that were 2 foot high. I then moved them off, covered it in fall leaves and woodchips. Wow... that was some good soil the next spring.

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Ryan,
Based on my experience I would only use chickens to start to kill grass. While they can get it down to bare dirt... generally by the time it gets there, it is usually very matted down, covered in manure, and a scorched earth/hard pan kind of think. I made some gardens the exact size of my movable electronet. One I left till it was bare dirt. It worked, but I don't feel that it was healthy for the chickens or the soil.

On the second garden, I left them only for a couple of days. They knocked down 98% of some grass/weeds that were 2 foot high. I then moved them off, covered it in fall leaves and woodchips. Wow... that was some good soil the next spring.

Thank you, good advice

Timothy Norton wrote:Left on the area long enough, I believe chickens would do the job nicely.

Echoing what Megan has already stated, consider putting down a thick layer of wood chip. Chickens love to dig in wood chip and they eventually automatically turn towards it when let out to pasture. It'll help block off light to the grass while the chickens aren't working on that particular spot.

Awesome, thank you

Matt McSpadden wrote:Hi Ryan,
Based on my experience I would only use chickens to start to kill grass. While they can get it down to bare dirt... generally by the time it gets there, it is usually very matted down, covered in manure, and a scorched earth/hard pan kind of think. I made some gardens the exact size of my movable electronet. One I left till it was bare dirt. It worked, but I don't feel that it was healthy for the chickens or the soil.

On the second garden, I left them only for a couple of days. They knocked down 98% of some grass/weeds that were 2 foot high. I then moved them off, covered it in fall leaves and woodchips. Wow... that was some good soil the next spring.

After wood chips and leaves did the grass ever try to come back?

Ryan Burkitt wrote:After wood chips and leaves did the grass ever try to come back?

Not very much. I'd say it was probably 4" of leaves and 5-6" of woodchips. There were a few hearty weeds that poked up through, but they were easy to pull and not wide spread. It will depend somewhat on what kind of plants are there now.

I use chickens to kill of Kikuyu. It's a very hardy running grass. I have found that if I continue to cycle chickens through several areas, they eventually kill the entire root system. This takes time and patience, but is healthier for the chickens, and reduces the feed bill. I have 3 runs. I will leave 12 chickens in a 12x12m section for 1 week, then move them to the next section. By the time they return to the same section, new grass and weeds have grown, meaning they constantly have access to greens. Over a 3 month period, they will have depleted the energy stores in the root system of the grass and it will be mostly gone. I mulch the 3 sections to use as veggie gardens for one season and then I cycle the chickens back through, as some grass and weeds inevitably come back. Doing this consistently eventually kills all the residual roots and seeds and makes beautiful soil that I never have to dig.

Ryan Burkitt wrote:I’m wanting to clear out a section of my lawn for a garden. I’m guessing it’s just typical lawn grass. However, I’m trying to avoid using glyphosate and other herbicides to kill the grass. I’ve also considered a sod cutter, but it’s a lot of work and hard to transport. Would it be possible to use chickens instead to kill the grass?
Will chickens actually kill grass or will it grow back after they are moved from a certain spot?

It depends on the type of soil you have: In my sand box, my chickens will scratch not just to get at the grass/ insect, worms etc. They will also scratch to dust bathe. In this kind of environment, yes, they will eventually kill the grass.
In the heavy clay soil I used to have at my former address, forget about it. Rabbits or sheep or hogs would do a much better job.
However, since you are intent on doing a garden anyway, why not start to improve the soil with leaves, manures, compost: The chooks love to scratch *deep* in this environment.
If you want to grow some sort of grain there first, you could just scatter grain. [Before a good soaking rain if possible] They will miss some and you would have a field already planted.
You should not count on the chickens to stay there until it is plowed to your satisfaction because your chickens stand to starve before that happens, Putting *treats* like kitchen scraps and mulch will encourage then to dig a bit deeper.
Just monitor the situation well. Make sure they *also* have grit and water.

Yes.

Of course you can kill the grass with animals.  Given intensive enough stocking rates you can kill almost anything with animals.

That said what is your goal afterward?  Well established grass will probably take a full year or even 2 to kill completely and you will be left with packed dirt with almost no organic left in it as your top cover.  Now if just setting it back solidly is the goal chickens may be nearly ideal.  And if packed dry dirt pavement is the goal and you have time also good answer.  If garden in lush fluffy organic weed free soil is the goal less good for a goal.  If that is the goal you need to add a bunch of other organic like sawdust and probably help them work it in deeper.