8 years later this is still a great idea. I want to build this over the winter for our girls and our garden. If you have a child's 12 ft trampoline ready to retire, and wrap fence around it, you could attached it with a tunnel for an extra play area. Another hawk free zone.
This is SUCH a great idea! I sure wish I had seen this before constructing our new run. It just makes so much sense. The chickens are safe, the gardens stay bug free. I love the little underpass!
@@ambeegaming76 He also leads with the statement that it works against "any" insect and then goes deeper by specifically saying "grasshoppers" and "flying insects." While I'm sure it deters some flying insects, if you lived where I live, it would do practically nothing to stop the grasshoppers and various flying beetles. Also, there's two more things worth noting: 1) Good luck with slugs. Slugs come out at night, when the chickens are away and that fence will not deter them. 2) This "castle and moat" isn't the best idea for a chicken run. Those chickens will turn the moat area into dirt very quickly. There'll be no grasses, seeds and way less insects for them to forage. Then when it rains, it'll be a pit of mud. To me the idea seems great on the surface but if you really start to think about it, you'd see the practical shortcomings. I think a person would be better off, if they have significant insect issues, screening their garden with mesh fabric and using a mobile chicken tractor, if they really wanted to get their chickens out and about. But that's my advice and nobody has to take it.
Thank you! I love this. I don't have a full moat but two sides of my organic vege garden is protected by my lovely hens. next phase will definitely be a moat....thank you again. J
Holy shit! What a pile of great ideas to consider for integrating chickens w/ our garden. Chicken tractors, chicken tubes, so many great ideas! I especially liked the attention to human traffic/chicken traffic and using greenery to cool & hold in moisture.
I know how to deal with predators. The same concept as the chicken moat. You setup a 3rd fencing barrier that you use as a dog and goat run. The dogs chase off predators and the goats keep the vegetation clear so the dogs can see the predators more easily.
What a great idea! Can be done much cheaper by making parts of the run just a netting tunnel, instead of a tall structure like here. But a great way to do pest control.
I wonder how this design is holding up after eight years. Have you made improvements or perhaps extended your garden and chicken run? An updated video on this would be nice to see and help us out on our builds here at home.
Unless your hens are on in years, you should be getting eggs every day (1 each day per hen) as long as you're feeding them enough calcium & protein -- not just "a few from time to time". I've seen a sort of "chicken moat" idea before, but nothing this elaborate -- and, quite frankly, beautiful! I'm going to try to implement something like this. (Assuming I can find/afford the building materials at this point in the decline of our civilization, of course!)
Ah this seems like a great idea, would love to do this when we move onto our own property. Are they active at night? If not then no need for the top covering, just put them up. It would be great to try to create a forest environment for them in the moat and if you wanted to go crazy you could create another layer outside of that for a guardian dog. If the garden was in a miniature valley then the contour of the land would drain the nutrients from the moat into the garden
That a lot of extra fencing for chicken and gardens plus I I need to keep the deer 🦌 out that eat everything but the grass, they jump more than 5 feet I believe
Brilliant idea, from observing my chooks and insects, lizards even other birds, the chooks are full on about killing and eating anything that moves. I've seen them see a small gnat type bug from across the yard and they'll run to catch and eat it
We used hot wire near the base of the chicken pen. Easier to install and maintain than wire (doesn't rust as easily) and cheaper if you already have a fence charger. And very effective.
@@katiedotson704 Here the snakes are too small to ingest an egg, and the chickens just too plain aggressive for the chicks to be threatened. We've seen our chickens (mostly banties) pile on to kill the snakes. They seem to think the snakes are tasty.
I'm confused. The bridge with tunnel connects what 2 areas? It looked like it runs underneath the actual chicken moat. Don't i want them inside the moat instead of passing under it?
this would be a very expensive fence . especially in Canada right now. very cute, great idea, but very expensive. We just built a house-2018 and it cost 3x as much as we estimated.
So its the same concept with button quail? but to what size... i have a tiny backyard n want to do the same to prevent ants slugs snails and be blue tongue lizard proof
We believe you should be able to tweak the bird type and size to fit your specific needs! If you have a tiny backyard you might check into how much space button quail need to thrive, and then base you dimensions of the Moat Garden from that. Good luck! Thanks for watching!
There are smaller chickens out there. Quail are vegitarian not bug eaters so yeah. Even small chickens eat meat if they can get it, snakes, lizards, bugs, mice ECT.
in my garden, i left the chicken free roaming, but had to fence my vegetable beds, they got ride of the roach infestation in the compost pile and the scorpion i often encounter when i clean the garden from time to time, before my chicken got stolen that it ..
You forgot to mention how EXPENSIVE all of this is to put up. Yeah, don't forget to contact your local government to get PERMISSION to do stuff on YOUR OWN PROPERTY too. Do we REALLY own our property any more? Between regulations and property taxes..... hard to really say.
I'm gonna move in next to your house, put a bunch of noisy animals in my back yard that screech all day and howl all night, pile their shit up against the fence next to your bedroom window, and whenever the pile gets too big, I'll light it on fire and you can just cross your fingers that none of the embers lands on your roof. Meanwhile I'll make sure to park my non working cars on my front lawn, along with my collection of broken appliances so that your property value goes down. That's what I love about being a property owner in your anarchistic fantasy world - it gives me the freedom to do whatever I want on MY OWN PROPERTY and not give a shit about my neighbors and do whatever I want without consequences no matter how much it hurts others or damages their property! WOOHOO! The only problem is your neighbors want money for their property and it's EXPENSIVE. Can you believe they actually want money for things? What kind of free country do we live in where things cost money? What do they expect me to do, work a job and gather enough money to purchase the property at a fair market value? Communist bastards.
And oh, yeah you don't need a ruling class of government to freely exchange value between free individuals for goods and services rendered. We can even choose our favorite currency to conduct our buisness. Isnt freedom great?
It‘s not about you, it‘s about ensuring animal welfare. They need space and care, and you shouldn‘t upset the neighbors too much to avoid noise complaints.
@@shelbyseelbach9568 ok , I may have seen that, to periodically hunt for insects that made it past the moat or that can fly over (locast) Makes sense. I like the chicken moat concept, don't get me wrong. I have chickens and would love to have an extra enclosure to let them run around in.
@@rce2553 I wasn't getting you wrong. You pointed out a potential flaw, I pointed out that it was specifically addressed in the video you were commenting on. No big deal.
You go ahead and use netting and let us know how that goes when the opossums coyotes and every known meat eater visits your chickens and nothing but steel bars will work for bear.
The chickens will eat your entire garden. This is a fine concept - IF you have the necessary space, resources and nerves to build and maintain this. It is definitely not for everyone!
