Shannon Hickman

Hi all,
I’m brainstorming ways to set up a mobile chick flock to follow behind rotational grazing cattle. The mobile chicken coop must be road-worthy to move between covercrops fields. So converting a horse trailer might work. Even with electric fencing in place, I’d like your input on which form of livestock guardian would work best. I’ve heard that Maremma dogs are less likely to roam around, and I was thinking of adding a couple of geese for raptor awareness. Do you know anyone offering this service to cash crop producers or orchardists?

Hi all, Just wanted to clarify. So there is deep litter mulch for poultry, which uses high carbon bedding like leaves, wood chips, etc. I’ve been using this method for three years. I also tried shredded newspaper, but it was not a great option. I start in the fall, October in Eastern Washington, by digging out the residue in the covered run, first scraping back the top orange/brown layer and spreading the dark black sublayer around the garden. It has been composting in place for a year. Then I add a new layer of wood chips around 6 inches deep, mixing in the top lay I had moved aside to innoculate the new bedding. If things get damp in the winter, I'll throw some leaves on top and maybe some extra leaves under the roost. But that’s it for maintenance in the deep litter method. This is not the KNF Poultry method.

KNF poultry is the native dirt floor inoculated with LAB and IMO sprays with maybe a 1/4” deep layer of straw finely chopped for 130 birds in permanent in-door accommodations. They also spread scratch daily to encourage the chickens to clean the floors. That’s it. Perhaps they add some extra straw on occasion. But it is not deep litter. You can see 40 minutes into this 3-hour video from Master Cho's intensive training in Korea while they tour a farm. There isn’t a deep mulch. Thank you to Dr. Drake for sharing his recording on YouTube. https://youtu.be/pJA_dx4zHy4?si=kAE5JV4FOJMxlp4k

Master Cho’s innovations are well thought out. They also mention in the video series that the chickens are highly productive for three years, and at the end of that time, they are butchered and sold as meat hens for a premium price because of their high-quality meat. During those three years in the same area, they never remove the bedding, unless, at the end of the three years before moving the new chicks in, they want to sell it as a high-grade soil inoculant to farmers. Not because it has to be removed. So, it’s a very different method to deep litter.

I want to start using it once I can have a larger space and more than four birds.

This is the most recent webinar on Bigleaf maple syrup production I signed up for by WSU Extension Forestry in 2022. https://youtu.be/I8jO4y4neVc

I’ve been most impressed by Singing Frogs Farm in California. I believe they have 3 acres in year round production for CSA and local farmers markets. It’s all no till in hand labor with high intensity 3 to 7 crops in a given area each year.

Nine minute interview with Curtis Stone:  
Longer No-till Farmers Elizabeth and Paul Kaiser Keynote 2017 NOFA/Mass Winter Conference